"For their riches the monasteries came to be coveted by the Turkish invaders. They became special targets of the invaders’ greed. The Turks killed a large number of Buddhist monks in Nalanda, although some of the monks managed to escape to Nepal and Tibet."

“R.S. Sharma's whose Indian Feudalism has misguided virtually all historians of the period, not only because it it entirely written from the a priori assumption of the 'dark age', doggedly searching for point by point parallels with Europe, but also, ... because there has never been anything to challenge it... Sharma has repeated his views innumerable times - almost verbatim often, and hardly developing them... Sharma's thesis "involves an obstinate attempt to find 'elements' which fit a preconceived picture of what should have happened in India because it happened in Europe or because of the antiquated Marxist scheme... The methodological underpinnings of Sharma's work are in fact so thin that one wonders why, for so long, Sharma's colleagues have called his work 'pioneering.'”

“We find that in the beginning every religion is inspired by the spirit of reform, but eventually it succumbs to rituals and ceremonies it originally denounced. Buddhism underwent a similar metamorphosis. It became a victim to the evils of brahmanism against which it had fought in the beginning.”