BIHAR

state of India. It is bounded by Nepal on the north and by the states of West Bengal on the east, Orissa on the south, and Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh on the west. It has an area of 67,134 square miles (173,877 square kilometres) and is one of the most populous states. The capital is Patna. Bihar occupied an important position in the early history of India; for centuries it was the principal seat of imperial powers and the main focus of Indian culture and civilization. The derivation of the name Bihar from the Sanskrit vihara (Buddhist monastery) reflects the presence of numerous such communities in the region in ancient times. constituent state of India, lying in the northeastern part of the country. It is bounded on the north by Nepal and, in India, on the east by West Bengal, on the south by Orissa, and on the west by Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The capital is Patna. The state of Bihar roughly corresponds to the ancient kingdoms of Videha, north of the Ganges River, and Magadha, south of the river. The political supremacy of the Magadha kingdom, founded in the 6th century BC, persisted under the Nanda dynasty (4th century BC) and the Mauryan dynasty (4th2nd century BC) and, after a decline, resurged under the Guptas (4th5th century AD). Muslim occupation ensued in the early 13th century and lasted more than 500 years. Under British domination from the 1760s, Bihar was the scene of several revolts, notably the Santhal rebellion of 1855 (an important prelude to the Indian Mutiny in 1857) and Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent movement in Champaran in 1917 protesting the exploitation of Indian peasants by local European indigo planters. Bihar was constituted a separate province of British India in 1936. Upon Indian independence in 1947 the province became a state of the new nation. Physiographically, Bihar contains two principal divisions: the Chota Nagpur Plateau of the south, the main foundation of which dates to Precambrian time (more than 540,000,000 years ago), and the middle Gangetic Plain of the north, bisected by the Ganges River and consisting of new alluvium. The plateau lies mostly above 500 feet (150 m) in elevation, and its highest point is the granite peak of Parasnath4,477 feet (1,365 m) highin Hazaribag. The gently sloping plain lies mostly below 250 feet (75 m) in elevation and is susceptible to large-scale flooding during the rainy season, but its extremely fertile soils support a dense agricultural population. Severe earthquakes were recorded in the northern part of the plain in 1934 and 1988. The state has a humid subtropical monsoon climate, with three well-defined seasons: the cool season, from November to February; the hot season, from March to mid-June; and the rainy season, from mid-June through October. Temperatures in December and January fall to 41 F (5 C) and below, while those in May rise above 104 F (40 C). The state's mean annual rainfall is 50 inches (1,270 mm). Bihar, with 5 percent of India's total land area, contains 10 percent of its total population. The state language is Hindi, the mother tongue of four-fifths of the people. Other languages spoken include Urdu, Bengali, Santhali, Oraon, and Mundari. Bihar has one of the lowest literacy rates among Indian states (below 40 percent). The predominant religion is Hinduism, accounting for 83 percent of the population, while Islam (14 percent) and Christianity (1 percent) are the other important religions. Only about one-eighth of Bihar's population lived in urban areas in the late 20th century, making the state one of the least urbanized in India. Three out of four people in Bihar are engaged in agriculture, and nearly half of the state's area is cultivated. Rice is the principal crop, followed by wheat, millet, lentils, oilseed, sugarcane, potatoes, and cotton. Irrigation is widespread during the dry season. Biharspecifically the Chota Nagpur regionyields more than one-third of India's annual mineral production, the most of any state or union territory. Most of this output, by value, derives from coal; other minerals are pyrite, mica, bauxite, fireclay, and iron ore. Chota Nagpur is also the principal location of the state's nonagricultural industries: iron and steel in Jamshedpur and Bokaro, heavy engineering in Ranchi, and coal-based fertilizers and chemicals in Sindri. The middle Gangetic Plain has numerous sugar, cotton, and rice mills. Dalmianagar is a centre for the production of cement, asbestos, chemicals, sugar, paper, and plywood, and Barauni has a small petrochemical complex. There is an extensive network of railroads, and a somewhat less-developed network of roads. The state government has two legislatures. The upper house, the Legislative Council, is partly elected from various constituencies and partly nominated by the governor, while the more powerful lower house, the Legislative Assembly, is elected by adult franchise. The president of India appoints the governor. Real executive authority lies with the chief minister, elected by the Assembly. The judiciary is separate from the executive-legislative branch. Bihari culture is based largely on ancient Aryan Hindu elements. Rural Chota Nagpur has retained much of its aboriginal way of life. Places of religious and cultural interest abound in the plains. Nalanda is the seat of the ancient and celebrated Nalanda Buddhist monastic university. Pawapuri is the place where Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, attained nirvana. Gaya is an important place of Hindu pilgrimage, and nearby Buddh Gaya (Bodh Gaya), where the Buddha attained Enlightenment, is one of Buddhism's holiest sites. Annual religious festivals remain an important part of village life. The educational system offers 10 years of basic schooling, followed by a two-year precollege program and three years of college. The universities at Patna, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, and Buddh Gaya have medical colleges. Government-run engineering colleges are located at Patna, Sindri, Bhagalpur, and Dhanbad. There is also a Sanskrit university (1961) at Darbhanga. Area 67,134 square miles (173,877 square km). Pop. (1991 prelim.) 86,338,853. Additional reading Enayat Ahmad, Bihar: A Physical, Economic, and Regional Geography (1965), contains sections on population and settlement. Other economic studies include Arvind N. Das, Agrarian Unrest and Socio-economic Change in Bihar, 19001980 (1983); and Alakh N. Sharma and Shaibal Gupta, Bihar: Stagnation or Growth (1987). R.R. Diwakar (ed.), Bihar Through the Ages (1959), provides an authoritative cultural and political history up to the postindependence period, with introductory chapters on geology and geography. See also Bindeshwari Prasad Sinha (ed.), Comprehensive History of Bihar (1974 ); and Jata Shankar Jha, Early Revolutionary Movement in Bihar (1977). Shree Govind Mishra, History of Bihar, 17401772 (1970), analyzes the period of British ascendancy. Ashok K. Dutt Allen G. Noble History In the Early Vedic Period (beginning about 1500 BC) several kingdoms existed in the Bihar plain. North of the Ganges was Videha, one of the kings of which was the father of Princess Sita, the wife of Lord Rama and the heroine of the Ramayana, one of the two great Hindu epic poems of India. During the same epoch, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Magadha was Rajagrha (modern Rajgir), about 45 miles southeast of Patna; to the east was the kingdom of Anga, with its capital at Campa (near Bhagalpur). A new kingdom later arose in southern Videha, with its capital at Vaisali. By about 700 BC, the kingdoms of Vaisali and Videha were replaced by a confederacy of the Vrjjissaid to be the first republican state known in history. It was in Magadha, in the 6th century BC, that Buddha developed his religion and that Mahavira, who was born at Vaisali, founded the religion of Jainism. In about 475 BC the capital of the Magadha empire was located at Pataliputra (modern Patna), where it remained under Asoka (emperor of India from about 273 to 232 BC) and the Guptas (a dynasty of emperors who ruled India in the 4th and 5th centuries AD) until the onslaught of the Hunas in the middle and late 5th century. In the 6th7th century AD the city was devastated by the migration of the Son River; the Chinese pilgrim Hsan-tsang recorded that in AD 637 the city had few inhabitants. It regained some of its glory, but it is doubtful that it ever served as the capital of the Pala empire (which lasted from about 775 to 1200). During the ensuing Muslim period (about 1200 to 1765), Bihar had little independent history, remaining a provincial unit until 1765, when it came under British rule andtogether with Chota Nagpurwas merged with the state of Bengal. Originally, Chota Nagpur was mostly forest-clad and was ruled by chiefs of various aboriginal tribes. Though British authority was only gradually established in the plains to the north during the second half of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, occasional revolts against them took place in Chota Nagpur, the most important being the Ho revolt of 1820 to 1827 and the Munda uprising of 1831 to 1832. Later, Bihar was an important centre of the Indian mutiny and revolt of 1857 to 1859 against British political authority. Bihar formed a part of the Bengal Presidency until 1912, when the province of Bihar and Orissa was formed; in 1936 the two became separate provinces. Bihar played an active role in the successive phases of Indian nationalism. Mahatma Gandhi, the nationalist leader who advocated nonviolent resistance, first launched the satyagraha (devotion to truth) movement against the tyranny of the European indigo planters in the Champaran region of northern Bihar. Rajendra Prasad, who played a leading part in the freedom movement and was elected the first president of independent India, was born in the Saran district, northwest of Patna. Upon India's independence in 1947, Bihar became a constituent part (becoming a state in 1950), and in 1948 the small states of Saraikela and Kharsawan were merged with it. In 1956, when the Indian states were reorganized on a linguistic basis, a territory of some 3,140 square miles was transferred from Bihar to West Bengal. In 1990, for the first time since independence, a state government was elected from a party other than that controlling the national government. P. Dayal Ashok K. Dutt Allen G. Noble