20 L. A. Waddell— Discovery of Buddhist Remains [ISo. 1, 
Pathan soldiery at tlie Muhammadan invasion of Bihar, which event 
took place in 1195 A. D. under the Af gh an General Bakhtyar Khilji. # 
Stewartt states that Indradyumna’s troops fled without offering any 
resistance ; thus the teeming monasteries were left unprotected, and the 
Muhammadans appear to have regarded the monks as the soldiery of 
the enemy, and massacred them wholesale. What happened in the 
neighbouring monastery of Bihar ( vihdra ) has been chronicled by one 
of the historians of the invaders, and it is typical of what must have 
happened a few days later at Uren. He saysj “Muhammad Bakhtyar 
“ with great vigour and audacity rushed into the gate of the fort and 
“ gained possession of the place. Great plunder fell into the hands of 
“ the victors. Most of the inhabitants of the place were Brahmans with 
“ shaven heads. They were put to death. Large numbers of books 
“ were found there ; and when the Muhammadans saw them, they called 
“ for persons to explain their contents, hut all the men had been killed. 
“ It was discovered that the ivhole fort and city was a 'place of study (madra- 
“ sah). For in the Hindi language the word vihdra means ‘ a college.’ ” 
In the above account the_occupants of the monasteries are described as 
‘ Brahmans with shaven heads.’ These were quite evidently Buddhist 
monks, as the rude idol-hating invaders were ignorant of the religious 
distinctions of the Indians, and having killed all the Buddhist monks, 
the subsequent historian merely designates the massacred priests by the 
title of the surviving priests of the people. In support of this view 
is the reference to shaven heads, which condition is a characteristic of 
Buddhist monks, and not of Brahman priests, who leave a tail of 
hair uncut at the crown and do not differ in this respect from the 
laymen. 
Invading Muhammadans the destroyers. —This tradition is also fully 
supported by the appearance of the remains. The deep-rooted respect 
paid by Hindus to images and idols of every description, even though 
these be of strange gods, is as well known as is the Muhammadan’s re¬ 
ligious abhorrence of images; and Pathans are amongst the most fana¬ 
tical of Muhammadans. Most of the large statues have been shivered 
into pieces, and of the smaller ones scarcely any have escaped serious 
mutilation; and that the mutilation was deliberately done is evident 
from the heads being broken off and features chipped, even when these 
were in depressed positions and not readily reached; the marks of 
hatchet cuts are also visible. This same spirit for mutilating images, 
* Blochmann in Statistical Acc., Bengal, XV, p. 63. Stewart (Hist. Bengal, p. 
39), puts the date at 1199 A. D. 
f Loc . cit . 
X Minhaj - i - Siraj in Tabaqdt-i-Ndsin, transl by Elliot, II, p. 306. 
