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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BEC-BER |
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BEHAR, or BIHAR , a town of British India, in the Patna district
The old province, stretching widely across the valley of the Ganges from the frontier of Nepal to the hills of Chota Nagpur, corresponds to the two administrative divisions of Patna and Bhagalpur, with a total area of 44,197 sq.m. and a population of 24,241,305. It is the most densely populated tract in India, and therefore always liable to famine
Bengali
district
east
Behar abounds in great rivers, such as the Ganges, with its tributaries, the Ghagra, Gandak
Annual engagements are entered into by the cultivators, under a system of pecuniary advances, to sow a certain quantity of land with poppy, and the whole produce in the form of opium is delivered to government at a fixed rate. Saltpetre is largely refined in Tirhoot, Saran and Champaran, and is exported both by rail and river to Calcutta. The manufactures of less importance are tussore-silk, paper , blankets, brass utensils, firearms, carpets, coarse cutlery and hardware, leather, ornaments of gold and silver, &c. Of mineralslead, silver and copper exist in the Bhagalpur division, but the mines are not worked. One coal-mine is worked in the parganas. Before the construction of railways in India, the Ganges and the Grand Trunk road afforded the sole means of communication from Calcutta to the North-Western Provinces. But now the railroad is the great highway which connects Upper India with Lower Bengal. The East
History.The province of Behar corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which comprised the country now included in the districts of Patna, Gaya and Shahabad, south of the Ganges. The origin of this kingdom, famous alike in the political and religious history of India, is lost in the mists of antiquity; and though the Brahmanical Puranas give lists of its rulers extending back to remote ages before the Christian era, the first authentic dynasty is that of the Saisunaga, founded by Sisunaga (c. 600 B.C.), whose capital was at Rajagaha (Rajgir) in the hills near Gaya; and the first king of this dynasty of whom anything is known was Bimbisara (c. 528 B.C.), who by conquests and matrimonial alliances laid the foundations of the greatness of the kingdom. It was in the reign of Bimbisara that Vardhamana Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. and Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, preached in Magadha, and Buddhist missionaries issued thence to the conversion of China, Ceylon, Tibet and Tatary. Even to this day Behar, where there are extensive remains of Buddhist buildings, remains a sacred spot in the eyes of the Chinese and other Buddhist nations.Bimbisara was murdered by his son Ajatasatru, who succeeded him, and whose bloodthirsty policy reduced the whole country between the Himalayas and the Ganges under the suzerainty of Magadha. According to tradition, it was his grandson, Udaya, who founded the city of Pataliputra (Patna) on the Ganges, which under the Maurya dynasty became the capital not only of Magadha but of India. The remaining history of the dynasty is obscure; according to Mr Vincent Smith
late
of the Brabmanical reaction and ' the decline of Buddhism; according to certain Buddhist writers the king, besides reviving Hindu rites, indulged in a savage persecution of the monks. The Sunga dynasty, which lasted 112 years, was succeeded by the Kanva dynasty, which after 45 years was overthrown (c. 27 B.c.) by the Andhras or.Satavahanas. In A.D. 236 the Andhras were overthrown, and, after a confused and obscure period of about a century, Chandragupta I. established his power at Pataliputra (A.D. 320) and founded the famous Gupta empire (see GUPTA), which survived till it was overthrown by the Ephthalitcs (q.v.), or White Huns, at the close of the 5th century. In Magadha itself the Guptas continued to rule as tributary princes for some centuries longer. About the middle of the 8th century Magadha was conquered by Gopala, who had made himself master in Bengal, and founded the imperial dynasty known as the Palas of Bengal. They were zealous Buddhists, and under their rule Magadha became once more an active centre of Buddhist influence. Gopala himself built a great monastery at Udandapura, or Otantapuri, which has been identified by Sir Alexander Cunningham with the city of Behar, where the later Pala kings established their capital. Under Mahipala (c. 1026), the ninth of his line, and his successor Nayapala, missionaries from Magadha succeeded in firmly re-establishing Buddhism in Tibet. In the 1th century the Pala empire, which, according to the Tibetan historian Taranath, extended in the 9th century from the Bay of Bengal to Delhi and Jalandhar (Jullundur) in the north and the Vindhyan range in the south, was partly dismembered by the rise of the " Sena " dynasty in Bengal; and at the close of the 12th century both Palas and Senas were swept away by the Mahommedan conquerors, the city of Behar itself being captured by the Turki free-lance Mahommed-i-Bakhtyar Khilji in 1193, by surprise, with a party of 200 horsemen. " It was discovered," says a contemporary Arab historian, "that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call
Behar now came under the rule of the Mahommedan governors of Bengal. About 1330 the southern part was annexed to Delhi, while north Behar remained for some time longer subject to Bengal. In 1397 the whole of Behar became part of the kingdom of Jaunpur; but a hundred years later it was annexed by the Delhi emperors, by whomsave for a short periodit continued to be held. The capital of the province was established under the Moguls at the city of Behar, which gave its name to the province. From the middle of the 14th to the middle of the 16th century a large part of Behar was ruled by a line of Brahman tributary kings; and in the 15th century another Hindu dynasty ruled in Champaran and Gorakhpur. Behar came into the possession of the East India Company with the acquisition of the Diwani in 1765, when the province was united with Bengal. In 1857 two zemindars, Umar Singh and Kumar Singh, rebelled against the British government, and for some months held the ruinous fort of Rohtas against the British. See Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908), s.v. " Bihar " and " Bengal "; V. A. Smith
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