The Ghurid turning point (late 12th century)

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Ghur was a hilly region west of Ghazni, in what is now central Afghanistan.
Its chiefs were once vassals (junior rulers who paid tribute) of the Ghaznavids.
They turned on their old masters and seized Ghazni itself.
Muhammad Ghuri (also called Muʿizz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam) led the push into India.
He first took Punjab and Sindh. He captured Lahore from the last Ghaznavid ruler in 1186 [2].

His main Indian rival was Prithviraja III, the Chauhan (Chahamana) ruler of Ajmer and Delhi [3].
Tarain 1191 (First Battle): Muhammad Ghuri was defeated and driven back.
In 1191 Prithviraja led a joint Rajput army and was supported by Jaichandra (Jai Chand) of Kannauj and Banaras [2].
Tarain 1192 (Second Battle): he came back and won.
The battlefield lay in the Karnal region of modern Haryana, between Karnal and Thanesar, about 110 km (70 miles) north of Delhi [2].
In 1192 Prithviraja fought without Jaichandra's support [2].
Ghurid cavalry tactics confused the Rajput army, and Muhammad then broke the Rajput centre with his main force [2].
Result: Prithviraja was executed and Delhi was captured.
Britannica calls this defeat a watershed in medieval Indian history — it ended Rajput power in the Indo-Gangetic plain and firmly planted Turkish rule in north India [2][3].

Mahmud raided for wealth. Ghuri came to keep land. His aim was territorial conquest, not plunder-and-return.
He did not stay to rule himself. He left generals behind to consolidate the conquered land.
Chief among them: Qutb-ud-din Aibak, who later founded the Delhi Sultanate.
His system was more centralised than the Rajput pattern of semi-independent chiefs.
Temporary land assignments:
Officers were given a piece of land for a limited time, not as permanent property.
From it they collected revenue and in return gave military service.
Since it was temporary, it could be taken back or shifted — this kept power with the centre.
This is the direct forerunner of Delhi Sultanate practice (the later iqta system).

Bakhtiyar Khilji was a commander under Aibak.
He conquered Bihar and Bengal.
He destroyed the two great Buddhist monastic universities, Nalanda and Vikramashila — huge booty was taken and monks were slaughtered.
The key source is Juzjani's Tabakat-i-Nasiri, written about 60 years after the event.
Juzjani records that the captured "fortress" turned out to be a college.
The clue was the word bihar — from vihara, meaning a Buddhist monastery. The province name Bihar itself comes from this word.
Nalanda's library held lakhs of manuscripts; it reportedly burned for months.
The chapter's stated consensus: this destruction precipitated (sped up) the decline of Buddhism in India.

Nalanda was founded by Kumaragupta I of the Gupta dynasty in the 5th century CE [4][5].
It was later patronised by Harshavardhana of Kannauj (7th century CE) and by the Pala rulers (8th–12th century CE) [4][5] — so it links directly back to the Harsha section of this topic.
The surviving remains cover a span from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE [4].
UNESCO calls it the most ancient university of the Indian subcontinent, with organised teaching running unbroken for about 800 years [4].
The site was systematically excavated in the early 20th century and is conserved in-situ (preserved where it stands) by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) [4].
ASI prepared the nomination dossier "Excavated Remains of Nalanda Mahavihara" and submitted it in January 2015; UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List on 15 July 2016 (Decision 40 COM 8B.20) [4][5].
Finds from the digs include a bronze sculpture of a Bodhisattva [4].
UNESCO records that the site was abandoned in the 13th century [4].

Bakhtiyar surprised the Sena ruler at Nadiya in 1203–04 — a fast raid rather than a long siege.
His Tibet expedition (1205), launched through Kamarupa (Assam), collapsed.
Local people resisted hard.
They used scorched earth — destroying food and supplies so the invading army starved.
1206 was the breaking year:
Muhammad Ghuri was killed.
Bakhtiyar was assassinated by his own men.
Yet Ghuri's generals kept hold of north India. This was the eve of the Delhi Sultanate.

Ghur lay west of Ghazni; its chiefs were former Ghaznavid vassals who captured Ghazni.
Muhammad Ghuri took Lahore from the last Ghaznavid in 1186 [2].
First Battle of Tarain, 1191 — Ghuri defeated; Second Battle of Tarain, 1192 — Ghuri victorious, Prithviraja III executed, Delhi taken.
Tarain lies between Karnal and Thanesar in present-day Haryana, about 110 km north of Delhi [2].
Jaichandra of Kannauj backed Prithviraja in 1191 but not in 1192 [2].
Qutb-ud-din Aibak — Ghuri's general, later founder of the Delhi Sultanate.
Ghuri gave temporary land assignments for revenue collection plus military service — precursor of Sultanate practice.
Juzjani's Tabakat-i-Nasiri is the key source for Bakhtiyar Khilji's raids, written about 60 years later; bihar comes from vihara.
Nalanda Mahavihara was founded by Kumaragupta I (5th century CE) and patronised by Harshavardhana and the Palas [4][5].
Nalanda was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List on 15 July 2016; the ASI dossier was submitted in January 2015 [4][5].
1206: Muhammad Ghuri killed; Bakhtiyar Khilji assassinated by his own men.

Raid versus rule — the real turning point. Mahmud of Ghazni struck for treasure and went home; Muhammad Ghuri came to hold territory. Leaving generals like Aibak in place is what converted battlefield wins into a lasting state. This is the honest dividing line between "invasion" and "sultanate".
Why the Rajputs lost despite winning once. Tarain 1191 shows Rajput arms could beat Ghurid arms. The 1192 result turned on broken alliances (Jaichandra absent) and Ghurid cavalry tactics against a heavier, slower Rajput formation [2]. The weakness was political coordination, not courage — a standard GS-I argument on Rajput fragmentation.
The administrative seed. Temporary, revocable land assignments tied to military service made the Ghurid system more centralised than Rajput arrangements based on hereditary chiefs. Trace the line: Ghurid assignments → Sultanate iqta → later revenue systems.
Nalanda and the decline of Buddhism — hold both sides. The NCERT position is that the destruction precipitated Buddhism's decline. Strengthen the answer by noting that Nalanda ran on royal patronage — Gupta, Harsha, Pala [4][5] — so when Pala power fell and the monasteries were sacked, the institution lost both its protector and its purse at once. Also note the source problem: Juzjani wrote about 60 years after the event.