Etymology
The name Bihar is derived from the Sanskrit and Pali word Vihara (Devanagari: विहार), which means "abode". The region roughly encompassing the present state was dotted with Buddhist vihara, the abodes of Buddhist monks in the ancient and medieval periods. Medieval writer Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani records in the Tabakat-i-Nasiri that in 1198 AD, Bakhtiyar Khalji committed a massacre in a town now known as Bihar Sharif, about 70 km away from Bodh Gaya. Later, Bakhtiyar learned that the town was a college, and the word for college is bihar.
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