The Islamic invasions didn’t just destroy temples — they operated a slave trade that likely exceeded the transatlantic slave trade in scale. This unflinching Part 2 presentation reconstructs the true magnitude of what Hindu civilisation lost over 500 years of Delhi Sultanate rule.
Using primary sources — Bernier, Dirk Kolff, Peter Mundy, and court chronicles — the session documents the systematic destruction of temple economies that served simultaneously as centres of Sanskrit learning, financial institutions, and social welfare. In one battle alone, 60,000 people were enslaved and transported to Central Asia; a single Mughal Amir boasted of enslaving 200,000 people and selling them to Iran. The civilisation’s intellectual vibrancy of a millennium was erased not by a single conquest, but by the sustained collapse of its patronage infrastructure.
The overarching thesis: civilisations don’t die when invaded — they die when they stop renewing themselves. The lesson for contemporary India is urgent and clear.

About the speaker:
Shashi Ranjan Kumar- An IAS officer, currently serving as the Secretary of the Union Public Service Commission. He holds the rank of Secretary to the Government of India. He is also an author, known for works such as The Decline of the Hindu Civilization: Lessons from the Past and Mysteries of the Universe.