A process is underway to translate and publish hundreds of original Buddhist manuscripts from Nalanda and Vikramshila, saved during the burning of the ancient universities in the 12th and 13th centuries by Bakhtiyar Khalji's army and later brought back to India from Tibet by traveller, freedom fighter and monk Rahul Sankrityayan, a Bihar state minister has said.

Bihar Art and Culture Minister Alok Ranjan informed the assembly on Thursday, March 17, that the process has been started by the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies (CIHTS) at Sarnath. The state government has signed an MoU with CIHTS for the translation and publication of original Buddhist manuscripts that were saved during the burning of two great ancient universities of Nalanda and Vikramshila.

"The valuable manuscripts were brought back to India by Sankrityayan and are now housed in the Patna Museum. The work to translate the manuscripts to Hindi and publish those is expected to be completed in five years," Ranjan said. The manuscripts were written in Sanskrit by scholars of the two universities between the 7th and 12th centuries.

CPI(ML) MLA from Dumraon, Ajit Kumar Singh, had raised the issue demanding that the state government preserve the original Buddhist manuscripts brought by Sankrityayan. He also demanded that a memorial dedicated to Shehnai player Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan be built at his native place in Dumraon.