49 Fun Facts About Bihar

Which English novelist, later a colonial policeman in Burma, was born in Motihari, Bihar?

George Orwell, born Eric Blair, was taken to England as a baby and brought up almost entirely by his mother.

Which Mauryan-era caves in Bihar were E. M. Forster's model for the cave episode of A Passage to India?

The Barabar Caves' polished granite walls produce striking echoes, and Forster renamed them the Marabar Caves in his novel.

Which Bihar labourer spent 22 years cutting a 110-metre path through a hill with a hammer and chisel?

Dashrath Manjhi's cut shortened the Atri–Wazirganj journey from 55 km to 15 km, and in 2015 his story became the film Manjhi – The Mountain Man.

Which native of Ziradei in Siwan district was the first President of India, from 1950 to 1962?

Rajendra Prasad, as a student, turned down Gokhale's invitation to join the Servants of India Society out of duty to his family.

Which river, called the 'Sorrow of Bihar', jumped back into a long-abandoned channel in August 2008?

Kosi floodwaters broke through an embankment at Kusaha, and nearly three million people in Bihar were forced from their homes.

Bihar grows 90 percent of the world's crop of which snack seed, harvested from a prickly water lily?

Makhana was traditionally harvested by divers groping through pond mud among thorny plants, but farmers now grow it in shallow flooded fields.

Which Bihar chief minister declared a total liquor ban across the state on 5 April 2016?

Nitish Kumar's ban was quashed by the Patna High Court on 30 September 2016, but the Supreme Court stayed that ruling a week later.

Which Sikh leader was born in Patna in 1666, at the spot now marked by Takht Sri Patna Sahib?

Guru Gobind Singh succeeded his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, as Guru at the age of nine, and in 1699 he founded the Khalsa.

Which fried sweet of wheat flour, jaggery and ghee is the signature prasad of Bihar's Chhath Puja?

Thekua, like the rest of the Chhath prasad, is traditionally cooked on a clay stove fired with mango wood.

Which adviser to Chandragupta Maurya, who helped topple Magadha's Nanda kings, is traditionally credited with the Arthashastra?

Chanakya's Arthashastra dropped out of use for centuries, until librarian R. Shamasastry recognised a palm-leaf copy among the manuscripts of a Mysore library in 1905.

Which bridge over the Ganges at Patna, opened in 1982, was the longest bridge in India until 2017?

Mahatma Gandhi Setu's worn concrete superstructure was replaced with steel, and the rebuilt bridge reopened in full in June 2022.

Who became Bihar's first woman chief minister in July 1997, taking over after her husband resigned?

Rabri Devi replaced her husband Lalu Prasad Yadav after the fodder scam forced him to resign, and she governed until 2005.

Bihar Day, 22 March, marks the day in 1912 when Bihar's divisions were split off from which province?

Bengal was reunited in 1911 after protests against Curzon's partition, and the reorganisation that followed separated Bihar.

Which modern state, split away on 1 April 1936, had shared one province with Bihar for 24 years?

Odisha, then spelt Orissa, became a separate province after decades of agitation to unite the Odia-speaking tracts scattered across neighbouring provinces.

Who was Bihar's first chief minister, serving until his death in 1961, nicknamed Bihar Kesari?

Shri Krishna Singh's ministry resigned in February 1938 when British authorities refused to free Bihar's remaining political prisoners.

Which two-time Bihar chief minister, called Jan Nayak, received a posthumous Bharat Ratna in 2024?

Karpoori Thakur ordered 26 per cent reservation in government jobs for Bihar's backward classes in 1978, a model for the later Mandal Commission reforms.

Which leader, namesake of Patna's airport, sought Indira Gandhi's overthrow in a 'total revolution'?

Jayaprakash Narayan's movement coalesced into the Janata Party, which in 1977 formed India's first non-Congress national government.

Bihar's Assembly shrank to 243 seats after which state was carved out of Bihar?

Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar on 15 November 2000, a date timed to the birth anniversary of the Adivasi leader Birsa Munda.

Bihar was India's third most populous state at the 2011 census, behind Uttar Pradesh and which state?

Maharashtra had about 112 million people in 2011, but Bihar squeezed its 104 million into less than a third of the area, making it India's most densely populated state.

In which Bihar region did Mahatma Gandhi back indigo farmers in a 1917 satyagraha?

Champaran's tenants were bound to plant indigo on part of their land, and Gandhi refused an official order to leave until his inquiry was finished.

Which country borders Bihar to the north, its Himalayan rivers feeding the state's floods?

Nepal's 1950 treaty with India keeps their border open, so Nepali citizens can cross into Bihar and work in India without a work permit.

Which ancient Bihar city, seat of the Vajjika League republic, has an Ashokan pillar and a Buddha relic stupa?

Vaishali is where, in Buddhist tradition, the Buddha first admitted women as nuns, after his foster mother Mahapajapati walked there with 500 women.

Which Bihar town, Magadha's first capital, is famed for its hot springs and the Vishwa Shanti Stupa?

Rajgir is where, Buddhist texts say, monks led by Mahakassapa held the First Buddhist Council soon after the Buddha's death to recite his teachings together.

Which Pala-era university on the Ganges in eastern Bihar was founded by King Dharmapala?

Vikramashila was a centre of Buddhist Tantra, and Dharmapala is said to have chosen its Ganges hillside because it was already a popular Tantric site.

Which Bihar district, the 'Silk City', holds a Ganges sanctuary for the Gangetic dolphin?

Bhagalpur's sanctuary guards the Gangetic dolphin, which India named its national aquatic animal in 2009 as a symbol of the Ganges' health.

Which Bihar town on the Ganges, site of a gun factory, is home to the Bihar School of Yoga?

Munger's yoga school took its teaching far beyond the ashram, and its programmes are now used in hospitals, defence institutions and even prisons.

Which Bihar town has the tomb of Sher Shah Suri, standing in the middle of an artificial lake?

Sasaram's lake tomb honours Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan ruler who drove the Mughal emperor Humayun out of Delhi and took northern India for himself.

Which banana-growing town across the Ganges from Patna is headquarters of the East Central Railway?

Hajipur became a zonal railway headquarters under Ram Vilas Paswan, its long-serving MP, who took charge of India's railways in 1996.

Which north Bihar city, nicknamed India's 'Litchi Kingdom', is famed for its Shahi litchis?

Muzaffarpur's litchi season has coincided with deadly child encephalitis outbreaks, and researchers have named toxins in unripe litchis as a possible cause.

Which flaky layered Bihar sweet from Silao, noted by archaeologist Beglar in the 1870s, has a GI tag?

Khaja from Silao is said to have been offered to the Buddha as he passed through the town on his way to Nalanda.

Which winter sweet, eaten at Makar Sankranti, is the Bihar city of Gaya famous for?

Tilkut is made in Gaya mainly in winter, when sesame and jaggery or sugar are heated, then hammered into biscuit-like rounds.

Bihar's Sonepur Mela, held where the Gandak meets the Ganges, is famed as Asia's biggest fair for trading what?

Cattle trading at Sonepur once ran alongside an elephant market, until selling elephants there was banned under wildlife law in 2004.

Pilgrims to Gaya in Bihar offer pind daan for ancestors beside the Vishnupad temple on which river?

The Phalgu flows past the Vishnupad temple, whose rock footprint is said to mark where Vishnu placed his foot on the demon Gayasur's chest.

Which folk painting style of Bihar, traditionally made by women on the walls of homes, takes its name from a district?

Madhubani painters have covered roadside trees in Bihar with images of Hindu deities, hoping the pictures would stop people from cutting them down.

Which north Bihar language with its own Tirhuta script entered India's Eighth Schedule in 2003?

Maithili got its own version of India's Constitution, released by President Droupadi Murmu on Constitution Day in November 2024.

Which Bihar folk playwright, called the 'Shakespeare of Bhojpuri', wrote the play Bidesiya?

Bhikhari Thakur, born into a family of barbers, went to Calcutta for work himself, and his plays told of migrants and the wives left behind in their villages.

Which Bihar poet, hailed as Rashtrakavi, wrote the epic poems Kurukshetra and Rashmirathi?

Ramdhari Singh Dinkar's verse was mostly heroic in mood, but Urvashi, the exception, won him the Jnanpith, one of India's highest literary awards.

Which star of Satya and The Family Man was born in Belwa, a village near Bettiah in Bihar?

Manoj Bajpayee was turned down by the National School of Drama, so he learned his craft in Delhi street theatre and as an assistant to teacher Barry John.

Which Patna teacher's Super 30 programme for poor IIT aspirants became a 2019 Hrithik Roshan film?

Anand Kumar had won a place at Cambridge University but could not afford to go, one reason he gives for coaching poor students.

Which Jagdishpur landowner, nearly eighty and ailing, led Bihar's rising of 1857 and seized Arrah?

Kunwar Singh beat a British force near Jagdishpur on 23 April 1858 and died three days later, and Bihar marks 23 April each year as Vijayotsav.

Which Bihar tiger reserve shares its northern edge with Chitwan National Park, across the border?

Valmiki National Park adjoins Chitwan so closely that India's 2010 tiger survey said the two parks should be managed as one tiger population.

In which Bihar district, home to the Barauni oil refinery, is Kabartal, the state's first Ramsar wetland?

Begusarai's Kabartal soaks up monsoon floodwater, a vital buffer in a state where about 70% of the land is prone to flooding.

Which polished sandstone statue, dug up on Patna's Ganges bank in 1917, now stars at the Bihar Museum?

The Didarganj Yakshi stands 1.57 metres on her pedestal in Chunar sandstone, and her finish is so fine that scholars argue whether she is Mauryan or centuries later.

Which Turko-Afghan general's troops are blamed for sacking the ancient university of Nalanda and setting it ablaze?

Bakhtiyar Khalji's raiders are blamed for the fire, and the monks who escaped fled to Tibet, carrying a handful of palm-leaf texts with them.

Bihar's Sama Chakeva festival of brothers and sisters coincides with what arriving from the Himalayas?

Migratory birds echo the festival's best-known legend, in which Sama, falsely accused, is turned into a bird until her brother's devotion restores her.

Which Bihar stupa, about 32 metres high, is linked to the alms bowl the Buddha gave the Licchavis?

Kesaria is where, legend says, the Licchavis kept following the Buddha on his last journey until he conjured a barrier they could not cross and sent them home.

Which Patna library opened in 1891 with 4,000 manuscripts and was declared of national importance in 1969?

Khuda Bakhsh gave his entire personal collection of manuscripts to the people of Patna by a deed of trust, turning a family hoard into a public library.

Which Ganges tributary, rising near Amarkantak, is crossed by the Koilwar rail bridge between Arrah and Patna?

The Son's Koilwar bridge was begun in 1856, but the risings of 1857 disrupted the work, so it was not finished until 1862.

Which final Tirthankara of Jainism was born at Kundagrama in the Videha kingdom of what is now Bihar?

Mahavira's birthplace Kshatriyakund is traditionally placed near an ancient town on the Gangetic plain, though its exact location within Bihar is still disputed.