Rambles in Bihar & Jharkhand

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In placing before the public this humble account of my rambles in Bihar the only apology that I can offer is the earnest desire expressed by a large number of my friends when a portion of it appeared in the Express. They read it with great interest and appreciation and insisted on my publishing it in the form of a book. Since my young days travelling has been a passion to me and the days I spent in my rambles are still so many green spots in memory's waste. In these pages I have tried to reproduce my recollections with as much accuracy and correctness as possible and I have taken pains to revisit some of the important places to refresh my memory and verify the accounts which I have revised. Pieces of information and other interesting details gathered subsequently have been incorporated. Some photographic illustrations have also been inserted which, it is hoped, will make the book more attractive. How far I have succeeded in my endeavour to make the book interesting, it is for my readers to judge.

In ushering the book into public existence, I have to place on record my grateful thanks to His Honour Sir Edward Albert Gait C. S. I., Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar and Orissa, for his gracious acceptance of dedication of the book to him. His Honour is the Founder, Patron and President of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society and the keen interest he takes in the antiquities and welfare of Bihar is a matter of common knowledge.

Although, with the exception of the Temple of Buddh Gaya, the Tomb of Sher Shah at Sassaram, and the Choti Dargah of Shah Daulat at Maner, Bihar possesses few historical buildings which can compare in point of architectural beauty with those in other Provinces, it is full of architectural remains of the greatest interest, and the sculptured records of the past, and its history goes back to the earliest times, and presents, throughout the length and breadth of the Province, a fruitful field for historical and archaeological research.

The history of Bihar is the history of Aryan civilisation from its infancy. A Province which is the birth place and the holy land of both the Buddhist and the Jain religions, which contains in Pataliputra the Capital of the Mauryan Empire and of the great Emperors Chandra Gupta and Asoka, which was for nearly a thousand years the metropolis of India, and goes still further back to the earliest ages of Indian history, going back to the Ramayan in the kingdom of Raja Janak and the birth place of Sita at Sitamarhi, and to the Mahabharat in the kingdoms of Magadha and Mithila and in the capital of Jarasandha at Girivraja, the old Rajgir, and in Gaya, possesses a place of Hindu pilgrimage from the earliest times; such a country need not fear comparison in historical interest with any other part of India.