A university library so vast it reportedly burned for months

Nalanda, in northern India, was one of the world's first residential universities, drawing thousands of monks and scholars from across Asia for over 700 years. When Bakhtiyar Khalji's forces attacked around 1200 CE, chroniclers claimed its library was so large the fire took months to burn out — though the university's decline had already begun before the attack.

— Minhaj-i-Siraj, Tabaqat-i Nasiri — 13th-century chronicle