Bhagalpur district General information
Bhagalpur district is one of the thirty-seven districts of Bihar state, India, and Bhagalpur town is the administrative headquarters of this district. Bhagalpur district is a part of Bhagalpur Division. The river Ganga flows through the district.
History
Legend, buttressed by a little hard evidence, has it that today’s Bhagalpur was the Champavati of fifth century B.C. It was a period when India’s earliest Indian empire was evolving around the Gangetic plains and Anga was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas (great states) that flourished. Champavati, the capital of Anga was also referred to by other ancient names like Malini, Champapuri, champa Malini, Kala Malini among others.
Athra Veda depicts Anga as an unholy place while Karna Parva condemns Anga as the land where wives and children were sold. However, at other places Mahabharat attests to the people of Anga as Sujati (noble birth) and proclaims the sanctity of Champa as a tirtha (place of pilgrimage).The epic attributes the foundation of this kingdom to a prince named Anga. Ramayana, however relates a romantic origin by way of Madana (Kamadeva or the Love God) cutting off his anga (body) in this region, out of sheer frustration at Siva’s anger.
Details
Bhagalpur District is one of the districts of Bihar and Bhagalpur town is the administrative headquarters of this district. Bhagalpur district is a part of Bhagalpur Division.
The city is situated on the Ganges River, 220 miles southeast of Patna. Bhagalpur is a road and railroad junction and the trading center for a fertile area in which rice, wheat, corn, barley, oilseeds, and sugarcane are the chief corps. The city has rice and sugar mills, and silk- and wool- weaving factories , and it is a distribution center for hemp narcotics. A silk culture institute and an agricultural research station are located there.
Ancient cave sculptures dating from the reign of the Emperor Ashoka (about 274- 232 B.C) are found in the neighborhood, and 5 miles west of the city, at Sultanganj is an early temple of the Gupta period of architecture ( about 320- 500 A.D.).
Bhagalpur, city, eastern Bihar state, northeastern India, just south of the Ganges River. The city has major road and rail connections and trades in agricultural produce and cloth. Major industries include rice and sugar milling and woolen weaving.
Bhagalpur is also noted for its silk production. A sericulture institute and an agricultural-research station have been established, and the city is the seat of Bhagalpur University (1960). Formerly called Sujanganj, Bhagalpur was constituted a municipality in 1864.
The surrounding region includes an alluvial plain in the north and forested uplands of the Chota Nagpur Plateau to the south. The Ganges and Chandan rivers drain the area. Grains and oilseeds are the principal crops; china clay, fireclay, and mica deposits are worked.
Agriculture
Paddy, Maize, Lentils
Industry: Tusser Silk, Thermal Power at Kahalgaon
Tourist Place
Mandar Hill: A small hill about 30 km from Bhagalpur is a good sightseeing. Every year on 14 Jan there is a very big fair on the occasion of Makar Sankarnti. This hill is the very same hill which was used for the Sagar Manthan. You can see the marks of the snake around the hill used for mathan. Foot prints of Lord Vishnu can also be seen on this hill. The most attracting feature of the hill is the lake at its peak. This place can be reached by a taxi or by train (thrice a day from Bhagalpur Jn).
Vikramashila: Founded in the latter part of the eight century A.D by Dharmapala, the Buddhist University of Vikramashila is loacted at the famous Patharghat Hill on the right bank of the Ganga, about 38 kilometers to the southeast of Bhagalpur. No early account of this monastic university is however, extant, nor has it been mentioned in Pali or Sanskrit literature. All that is know about it today is that it was patronized by the Pala Kings who helped the University of Nalanda too, though not on the same scale as they did in the case of Vikramashila. For a number of years this university was a well known center of Tantricism. The university was destroyed before A.D 1206.