History of Bihar

The history of Bihar is one of the most varied in India. Ancient Bihar, known as Magadha, was the center of power, learning, and culture in India for 1000 years. India's first empire, the Maurya empire as well as one of the world's greatest pacifist religion, Buddhism arose from the region that now makes modern Bihar. 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 Pataliputra, was an important political, military, and economic center of Indian civilization during the ancient and classical periods of history. Many of the ancient Indian text, written outside of the religious epics, were written in ancient Bihar. Abhijñānaśākuntala was the most prominent.

One of the first known republics in the world, Licchavi, existed in the region since before the birth of Mahavira (c. 599 BC). 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 Pataliputra. After, Bihar played a very small role in Indian affairs, until the emergence of the Suri dynasty during the Islamic period in the 1540s. After the fall of the Suri dynasty in 1556, Bihar again became a marginal player in India and was the staging post for the Bengal Presidency from the 1750s and up to the war of 1857–58. On 22 March 1912, Bihar was carved out as a separate provience in the British Indian Empire. Since 1947, Bihar has been a state in the Indian Union.