Readings in the History of Rural South Bihar (An Old and Rare Book)

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The present work is largely the outcome of a seminar on 'The Rural Society of Central Bihar in Historical Perspective' organised by the K.P.Jayaswal Research Institute. The districts of Patna, Nalanda, Bhojpur, Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal, Nawada and Auragabad were referred to as Central Bihar before the separation of Jharkhand from Bihar, and the countryside of the region witnessed several violent confrontations between different groups of peasantry. The seminar sought to examine diverse facets of the rural life of Central Bihar down the ages, in order to add to our historical understanding of the region. Presently, these districts form a part of South Bihar, and the title of the work has accordingly been altered.

South Bihar has a great antiquity, dating back to prehistory. The region yields evidence of stone- age cultures at different places, including a wide spread of Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures. However, the earliest Indian literature, namely, the Vedic texts seem to look down upon this region. A hymn in the Atharvaveda expresses the wish that the fever may visit the Gändhāris, Mūjavants, Angas and Magadhas (AV. V.22.14.). This region was obviously outside the Vedic cultural orbit during the first half of the 1" millennium BCE. The evidence is that the northern Bihar came under the Vedic influence earlier than the southern Bihar. Thus, a passage in the Satapatha Brahmaņa, considered to be the latest Vedic text and assigned to the c. 6º BCE., describes the migration of the Vedic people from the bank of Saraswati to the northern bank of Sadanirä (equated with Gandak), a region which had been marshy and uncultivated before the arrival of the Vedic people (ŠB1,4,1, 14-16). Would it explain the fact that certain orthodox sections of the northern Bihar still look down upon the region of Magadha?