Etymology of Bihar

The name Bihar is coined from the Sanskrit and Pali word, Vihara (Devanagari: विहार), which means "abode" or “Buddhist Monasteries”. The region roughly encompassing the present state was dotted with Buddhist vihara, the abodes of Buddhist monks in the ancient and medieval periods. Medieval writer Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani records in the Tabakat-i-Nasiri that in 1198 AD, Bakhtiyar Khalji committed a massacre in a town now known as Bihar Sharif, about 70 km away from Bodh Gaya.Later, Bakhtiyar learned that the town was a college, and the word for college is bihar.