Bihar GK Questions 2026

Brihadratha was the last of the Mauryas, and around 185 BCE his own commander-in-chief Pushyamitra Shunga killed him and took the throne, founding the Shunga dynasty with its centres at Pataliputra and Vidisha.

James Prinsep, secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, worked out the values of Brahmi letters and published his reading in 1837, which made the edicts speak.

Excavations at Kumhrar in Patna uncovered the plinth and pillar stumps of a large pillared hall of the Mauryan period, counted at eighty pillars of Chunar sandstone with the characteristic mirror polish.

Ashoka's Thirteenth Rock Edict names the Hellenistic kings to whom he sent dhamma missions, and their kingdoms are known from Greek history: Antiochus II Theos ruled the Seleucid kingdom of Syria, Ptolemy II Philadelphus ruled Egypt, Antigonus II Gonatas ruled Macedonia and Magas ruled Cyrene in north Africa.

Kumaragupta I, who took the title Mahendraditya, founded the monastery and seat of learning at Nalanda in the fifth century CE.

Harisena was Samudragupta's court poet and a high officer, and he composed the long eulogy engraved on an older Ashokan pillar now at Allahabad.

Mahapadma Nanda overthrew the Shishunagas and founded the Nanda dynasty in the fourth century BCE.

Shulka was a duty on goods, collected at the gates of towns and at ferries and frontiers on trade, not on land or its produce.

The First Buddhist Council met at the Sattapanni cave in Rajagriha soon after the death of the Buddha, under the patronage of Ajatashatru of the Haryanka dynasty.

Udayin, the son and successor of Ajatashatru, built a fort at the meeting point of the Ganga and the Son and moved the Magadhan capital there from Rajagriha.

Seleucus was the Macedonian general who took over Alexander's eastern conquests and tried to recover the Indian provinces around 305 BCE.

The survey counted 13,07,25,310 people, a figure higher than the census count of 2011 both because of twelve years of growth and because families whose members live and work outside Bihar were recorded.

The survey put the Extremely Backward Classes at 36.01 per cent of the population, the largest single group, followed by the Other Backward Classes at 27.12 per cent, the Scheduled Castes at 19.65 per cent, the unreserved castes at 15.52 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes at 1.68 per cent.

Rohtas district, with its headquarters at Sasaram, recorded the highest literacy rate among the districts of Bihar in 2011, a little above Patna, helped by its canal irrigated agriculture, its old towns and its schools.

Sheohar in north Bihar is the smallest district of the state by area, and almost all of that area is cultivated plain with closely spaced villages, so it recorded the highest number of persons per square kilometre in 2011, above the state figure of 1,106.

Sheikhpura, a small district carved out of Munger, had the smallest population of all the districts of Bihar in 2011, while Patna had the largest.

Bihar had 918 females for every 1,000 males in 2011, below the national figure, while its child sex ratio for ages nought to six was 935, which is better than the national child sex ratio.

Bihar grew by 25.42 per cent between the censuses of 2001 and 2011, the fastest among the large states of India, which is why its share in the population of the country keeps rising.

Bihar had a literacy rate of 61.80 per cent in 2011, the lowest of any state, with male literacy at 71.20 per cent and female literacy at 51.50 per cent, so barely half the women of the state were counted as literate.

Bihar recorded 1,106 persons per square kilometre in 2011, the highest of any state, because the alluvial plain of the Ganga is fertile, level and watered, and the state has very little forest or hill to thin the settlement.