was a creation of historians during the Indian freedom movement and provided an ideological support to participants of the movement, but, served no purpose after. Jha was accused by BJP politician, Arun Shourie of distorting the history of the destruction of Nalanda University in 12th century AD. In an article in the Indian Express, Jha responded that Shourie was distorting what he had said, and that Shourie's allegations of plagiarism are baseless. Jha also criticized Shourie's book Eminent Historians, saying that it contains "slander" and "has nothing to do with history." His last published book, Drink of Immortality (2020) studied alcohol distillation and consumption in ancient India. He argued that there were more than 50 varieties of alcohol that were available and consumed by men and women of ancient India. He further quoted religious texts including the epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata as well as the Vedas mentioning of alcohol consumption. Jha died on 4 February 2021 in Delhi, at age 81. He had suffered a paralytic attack a few years earlier and had lost much of his hearing. Works The Myth of the Holy Cow In his book The Myth of the Holy Cow, he alleged that cow formed part of the diet in ancient India. Cattle, including cows, were neither inviolable nor as revered in ancient times as they were later. Quoting from the Vedas and the Upanishads, he alleged that cattle were offered in sacrifice to various deities and that hardly any prayer was complete without animal sacrifice. He pointed out that during Ram's exile, Sita asked her husband for meat. And Ram obliged by getting her deer meat. Jha has received death threats over his book The Myth of the Holy Cow in which he outlined the practice of eating beef in ancient India as documented in Vedic and Post-Vedic texts. Since Hindutva organisations consider the cow holy and deny the claims of beef consumption during Vedic period, they created controversy over his book.The Guardian (13 July 2002) Jha discussed the events surrounding the publication in the introduction of the book The Myth of the Holy Cow. "Shortly afterwards, I began to get threats from unidentified callers asking me not to go ahead with the publication. Undeterred by all this Matrix Books, a new enterprising publishing house based in Delhi, mustered enough courage to publish the book promptly in the first week of August 2001. But