CULTURAL GLORY OF BIHAR
 

(11th August 1942; These 7 young students got riddled by British bullets while trying to hoist the Indian national flag at the Bihar secretariat building. The students were: UMAKANT PRASAD SINGH, RAMANAND SINGH, SATISH PRASAD JHA, JAGPATI KUMAR , DEVIPAD CHOWDHARY  , RAJENDRA SINGH,GOVIND SINGH )

Bihar is known for its rich cultural and spiritual beauty and it has given tremendous contribution to the world as well as it has numerous eminent personalities.

                              The ‘Bihar’ is derived from sanskrit and pali word vihara which means "abode".The word Vihara is itself derived from the word Brahmavihara,meaning 'Brahma abidings,'or "sublime attitudes".Ancient Bihar,known as Magadha,was the center of power,learning,and culture in India for 1000 year.Buddhism arose from the region that now makes modern Bihar.The history of BIHAR CAME INTO SHAPE WITH THE EMERGENCE OF Bimbisara.Udayin is attributed the credit of founding the city of Patliputra.Many emperors,includidg Ashoka,the great had their capitals in patliputra. Besides we also find many smaller dynasties that emerged in the territory of Bihar , viz. Sungas, kanvas, Kushanas, etc. magadha empires, notably under the maurya and Gupta dynasties, unified large parts of South asia under a central rule.Its capital patna, earlier known as Patliputra, was an important political, military and economic centre of Indian civilization during the ancient and classical period of history.Many of the ancient Indian text, written outside of religious epics were written in ancient Bihar.Abhignanasakuntala was the most prominent. 

One of the first known republics in the world, Licchvi existed in the region since before the birth of Mahavira. The classical Gupta dynasty of Bihar  was known to have been a period of great culture and learning inside India. The Gupta period is known today as The Golden Age of India. The Pala empire also made their capital at Patliputra. During the medieval period, the history of Bihar saw the emergence of Muslim rulers. The first Muslim ruler in this territory was Mohammad Bin Bakhtiar Khilji. Subsequently the throne of Bihar came under the domain of the Tughluqs and the Mughals. After that Bihar played a small role in the Indian affairs, untill the emergence of Suri dynasty during the Islamic period in the 1540s. After the fall of Suri dynasty in 1556, Bihar again became a marginal player in India and was the staging post  for Bengal presidency fromm 1750s and upto the war of 1857-58. Under the Mughals, Bihar emerged as a prosperous territory. After the decline of Mughals, Nawabs came in the political scenario of Bihar.But the British defeated the Nawabs in the battle of Buxar in 1764 and established their supremacy over Bihar.Under the British, the history of Bihar says, Bihar was the part of Bengal presidency . In 1936, Bihar and Orissa emerged as separate provinces. Besides, the state of Jharkhand, including the forest tract of Chhotanagpur plateau and the Santhal pargana, was culled from. 

   Bihar had four kingdoms 1. Mithila(videh),videh was ruled by Janak"sita.s father. 

2.Vaishali, it derives its name from king Vishal,whose heroic deeds are narrated in the "Ramayana."

3.Anga  ,was a kingdom ruled by non vedic rulers, and

4. Magadah .The  area of Patna and Gaya constituted the ancient Magadh kingdom having it's capital at RAJGRIHA.Magadha was a kingdom ruled by non-vedic kings.

Jarasandha was the greatest among them during epic times.The mauryan Empire was one of the largest empirees to rule India.The Maryan Empire is known for Arthasastra by Kautilya (chanakya) ,the rock Edicts of Asoka,and the Lion capital of Asokaat sarnath which today serves as the emblem of India.

MUHAMMAD KHILJI   raided Bihar in 1193 and his troops burned and destroyed the famous Buddhist universities of Nalanda and Vikramuila;which are the oldest universities in the world as well as the the highest state of higher education in India.Here he committed documentattion executions and had the monks beheaded,while others burned.He killed 15,000 scholars and faculty of Nalanda uniiversity and razed the entire building complex to the ground.He burnt the library at Nalanda .

 Bihar 's role in the history of India's struggle for freedom has been significant.Babu kunwar singh (1777-1858) one of the leaders of the Indian uprising of 1857 belonged to Jagdishpur.After return from south Africa, it was from Bihar champaran satyagrah received the spontaneous support from many Biharis.

Raj Kumar Shukla maintained a diary in which he has given an account of struggle against the attrocities against the indigo planters, attrocities so movingly depicted by Dinabandhu Mitra in Nil Darpan, a play that was translated by Michael Madhusudan Dutt. This movement of Mahatma gandhi received the spontaneous support of a cross section of people, including Dr Rajendra Prasad, Bihar Kesari Sri Krishna Sinha, Dr Anugrah Narain Sinha and Braj Kishore Prasad. Shaheed Baikuntha Shukla, another great nationalist from Bihar who was hanged for murdering Phanindra Nath Ghosh who had become a government approver whichledto hanging of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru.

EMINENT PERSONALITIES OF BIHAR

  

 MAHARSHI VALMIKI

Valmiki wrote the famous epic RAMAYANA

ASHTRAVAKRA

The child was born with his body crooked in eight places,and was named Ashtavakra (one with eight deformations) was very mature in wisdom.

RAJA JANAK

Janak was the kings of videha kingdom.Their capital was Mithila,which is believed to be present day Janakpur,Nepal. The janakas were known to versed in the knowledge of the Atman,and remained free from attachments even while living as householders.

MAHAVIRA

Lord mahavira is the twenty-fourth Tirthankar. He was born in 599 B.C.at kshatriyakund which was a part of the well known Vaishali republic. Mahavira made religion simple and natural

BUDDHA

Siddhartha Gautam was born around 566 BC in Kapilvastu. He established Bauddha Dharma. The two main goals of Buddhism are getting to know ourselves and learning the Buddha’s teachings.

PANINI

Panini, the ancient Indian Sanskrit grammarian was a person who provided the Sanskrit with a strong grammatical base and made it one of the most perfect languages in the world

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ARYABHATTA

Aryabhatta was born in 476 AD in Patliputra (Patna) and was lived during the reign of Gupta rulers, which was the golden time in India. Aryabhatta is the author of several treatise in Mathematics and astronomy.

CHANAKYA

Chanakya, also known as Kautilya or Vishnuguptha was the Prime Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, the first real emperor of India. He was a shrewd diplomat and cunning policy maker. Arthashashtra and Chanakyaneeti are considered as the works of Chanakya.

ASHOKA

Ashoka,the Mauryan emperor and grandson of Chandragupta Maurya was born in 304 BC and was a great warrior. Later on he adopted Budhism and made it the State religion and took many measures to spread it.

SAMUDRAGUPTA

Samudragupta (335-380) was the greatest king of Gupta Dynasty who ushered in the golden age in India. He was a benevolent ruler, a great warrior and a patron of arts.

GURU GOVIND SINGH

The 10th and the last Guru of Sikh Guru Govind Singh was the son of Guru Teg Bahadur (9th Guru) and was born in 1666 in Patna. Guru Govind Singh passed on the succession with due ceremony to the Holy book , The Guru Grantha Sahib, ending the line of personal gurus.

BABU KUNWAR SINGH

Kunwar Singh, jamindar of Jagdishpur near Ara was the chief organiser of the fight against British

SWAMI SAHAJANAND SARASWATI

Swami Sahajanand Saraswati was the frontmost leaders of peasantry in Bihar. His social and political activities concentrated mostly on Bihar through his Ashram at Bihta, near Patna. He was associated with freedom struggle.

SRIKRISHNA SINHA

Sri Krishna Sinha, commonly known as Sribabu was the 1st Chief minister of the Indian state of bihar. He remained Chief Minister of Bihar till his death (in 1961) and is considered among one of the architects of modern Bihar.

ANUGRAH NARAIN SINHA

Dr Anugrah Narain Sinha, known as Bihar Bibhuti was the first Deputy Chief Minister cum Finance Minister of state of Bihar. He is also considered one of the architects of modern Bihar along with Bihar Kesari SriKrishna Singh.

VASISTHA NARAIN SINGH

A world renowned mathematician and an ex-NASA scientist Dr Vasistha Narain Singh challenged works of great scientist Albert Einstien. 

RAM SHARAN SHARMA

Ram Sharan Sharma, a historian of Ancient and early medieval India was born in Barauni, Begusarai district. He wrote 115 books, published in 15 languages had taught in Delhi university and the university of toranto and was a senior fellow at School of oriental and African studies, University of London, UGC national fellow and ex-president of Indian History Congress and a historian of international repute.

VIDYAPATI

The poet Vidyapati was born around 1352 in Bisapi village of Madhubani district (Mithila). Vidyapati's most enduring contribution to Indian Literature is a corpus of over 500 songs in maithili.

RAJENDRA PRASAD

Dr Rajendra Prasad was the first president of the republic of India. He was an independence activist and also served as the president of constituent assembly that drafted the constitution of India. He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, the nation's highest civilian award.

JAYPRAKASH NARAIN

Bharat Ratna Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narain, also known as J.P. was an Indian Independence activist and political leader. He is remembered especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in 1970s.

RAMDHARI SINGH DINKAR

Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, born in Simariya village, Begusarai district was an Indian Hindi poet, essayist and academician. He is considered as one of the most important modern Hindi poets. 

REFERENCES:

1. EXCELENT BOOKS , Incredible Bihar

2. KUMAR SUBODH , The Social Political process and the Economic development of BIHAR

3. SINHA PRASAD BINDESHWARI , Comprehensive history of Bihar

4. VIJAY NAMBISAN , Bihar in the eye of the beholder

5. VERMa B.S , Socio- Religious Economic and Literary Condition of Bihar