Bihar

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bihar
Ancient

Bihar has a very rich history. It was called Magadha in ancient times. Its capital Patna, then known as Pataliputra, was the center of the Mauryan empire, which dominated the Indian subcontinent from 325 BC to 185 BC. Emperor Ashoka was the most famous ruler of this dynasty. Bihar remained an important place of power, culture and education during the next one thousand years. The Vikramshila and Nalanda Universities, were among the oldest and best centres of education in ancient India but got destroyed by wars in the medieval period.

Religions Originating in Bihar

Bihar is the birthplace of several religions, including Buddhism and Jainism. Buddha attained Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, a town located in the modern day district of Gaya. Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, was born in Vaishali. The tenth guru of Sikh, Guru Gobind Singh was born in Patna, the capital of Bihar. The word "Bihar" has its origin in the Sanskrit word Vihara meaning Buddhist Monasteries. At one time these "viharas" were strewn all over the landscape of Bihar, around villages and cities. At Lauria NandanGarh stands the ancient brick sepulchral mound thought to be the stupa where the ashes of Lord Buddha were enshrined. There also is a pillar with the edict of Ashoka exquisitely carved.

Medieval

Muhammad Bin Bakhtiar Khilji, a General of Muhammad Ghori captured Bihar in 12th century. This started the decline of the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Bihar. Many of the Viharas and the famed university of Nalanda and Vikramshila were destroyed in this period.

Bihar saw a brief period of glory for six years during the rule of Sher Shah Suri, who was from Sasaram and built the longest road of the Indian subcontinent, the Grand Trunk Road, which starts from Sonargaon in Bangladesh and ends at Peshawar in Pakistan.

Modern

Bihar's contribution in the freedom struggle has been immense with outstanding leaders like Swami Sahajanand Saraswati,Bihar Bibhuti Anugrah Narayan Sinha , Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, Satyendra Narayan Sinha (Singh) Basawon Singh (Sinha), Yogendra Shukla, Sheel Bhadra Yajee and many others who worked for India's freedom relentlessly and helped in the upliftment of the underprivileged masses. Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki were also active in revolutionary movement in Bihar.

Politics

Bihar was at the forefront of India's struggle of independence. Right from the 1857 war of independence to the 1942 Quit India movement, the whole country looked to Bihar for providing direction to its freedom struggle. Gandhi became the mass leader only after the Champaran Satyagraha that he launched on the repeated request of a local leader, Rajkumar Shukla. After independence also, when India was falling into a autocratic rule during the regime of Indira Gandhi, the main thrust to the movement to reinstate democarcy came from Bihar under the leadership of Jaya Prakash Narayan.


This has resulted in two things:

1. There is no regional identity for the state. Its voice often gets lost in the din of regional clammer of other states, specially the linguistic states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra etc.

2. Bihar has gained an anti establishment image. The establishment oriented press often projects this as indiscipline and anarchy.
Since the regional identity did not develop, its place was taken up by caste based politics.

Hindi, Urdu-(Urdu is 2nd official lanuage of state government), Angika, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Bangla and Magadhi (Magahi). are the major languages spoken in Bihar.

Angika is the only one of the languages which can be used in the Google Search Engine, Google-Angika has been available since 2004. The oldest poetry of the Hindi language (e.g., poetries written by Saraha, also known by the name Sarahapa, were written in the Angika language during the 8th century.

Bihar has produced a number of writers of Hindi, including Raja Radhika Raman Singh, Shiva Pujan Sahay, Divakar Prasad Vidyarthy, Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', Ram Briksha Benipuri, Phanishwar Nath 'Renu' and Baba Nagarjun. Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan, the great writer and Buddhist scholar, was born in U.P. but spent his life in the land of Lord Buddha, i.e., Bihar. Different regional languages also have produced some prominent poets and authors.

Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay, who is among the greatest writers in Bangla resided for some time in Bihar. Of late, the latest Indian writer in English, Upamanyu Chatterjee also hails from Patna in Bihar.

Devaki Nandan Khatri, who rose to fame at the beginning of the 20th century on account of his novels such as Chandrakanta and Chandrakanta Santati, was born in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angika
Angika is also spoken in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Durgapur, Punjab, Vadodara, Surat, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and other parts of the country. Angika is also spoken in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries. Besides this, a sizeable Angika speaking population exists in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

Angika is closely related to Bengali, Oriya, and Assamese. It is grouped in with the Bihari languages (including Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili and Vajjika). Angika is highly intelligible with other Bihari languages.