Details of Foreign Travelers Visiting Bihar

Megasthenes (350-290 BCE)

• He was the first foreign (Greek) traveler to come to Bihar, who stayed in the court of Chandragupta Maurya for about 14 years as an ambassador of the Greek king Seleucus. He played an important role in establishing friendship and treaty between the two.
• Megasthenes has given a detailed discussion of Pataliputra city and its administration in his book ‘Indika’. According to him, there was no famine in India and slavery was not prevalent at that time.
• In his book Indika, he called Pataliputra as Polibrotha/Palibrotha.
• According to this, Pataliputra city was the largest and grandest city in India, which was 80 stadia (9.5 miles) long and 15 stadia (1.65 miles) wide. It was more beautiful than the cities of Susa and
• The city of Pataliputra was situated at the confluence of the Ganges and Son rivers. According to him, for its protection, there was a deep moat (which was 600 feet wide and 45 feet deep) and a protective wall with 64 gates and 570 towers.
• The city administration was governed by a 30-member board. The members of the board were called

Dymachus (Syria)

• He came to Bindusara’s court as an ambassador of the Syrian king Antiochus. He is also considered the successor of Megasthenes.
• No account written by Dymachus is available, although the later classic writer Strabo (64 BC-10 BC) mentions that Dymachus wrote an account about Pataliputra and India. His residence in Pataliputra at that time shows that friendly relations with the Indo-Greek rulers continued even during this period.

Fa-Hien

• He was a Chinese traveler who came to India in search of Buddhist texts in 399 AD during the period of Gupta Emperor Chandragupta II Vikramaditya and stayed here till 411 AD.
• Fa-Hien was born in a place called Wuyang in China.
• In the course of traveling to many cities in India, after Rajgir, Nalanda, Gaya, he also came to Vaishali and Pataliputra.
• He lived in India for about 12 years.
• According to Fahien, Magadha was a prosperous state. Here he saw the chariot procession of Brahmins, in which deities were taken out in decorated chariots.
• Every year on the eighth day of the second month, the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas were taken out in a procession decorated in twenty chariots.
• Fa-Hien also went to Nalanda and Rajgir where he visited the Gridhakuta Mountain (the favorite abode of the Buddha).

Hiuen Tsang

• Hien Tsang was a Chinese traveler who came to India in 629 AD at the time of Harshavardhana. He lived in India for about 15 years.
• Hien Tsang presented his travelogue through a book called Si-Yu-Ki.
• Hien Tsang is also known as the prince of travelers, the scholar of policy and the present Shakyamuni.
• Hien Tsang came to India with the aim of studying at Nalanda University and collecting Buddhist texts.
• According to Hien Tsang, Nalanda was the main center of higher education in India where students from abroad also used to come. At that time, there were 8,500 students and more than 1,500 teachers. Religion, grammar, logic, science and medicine were taught here.
• According to him, there were two grand Buddhist viharas of Mahayana and Hinayana sects in the city, in which 600 to 700 monks lived.
• According to Hien Tsang, at that time Pataliputra had lost its grandeur and Kannauj was at its peak.

Itsing

• Etsing was the second Chinese traveler to come to India in the 7th century who came to India in 673 AD and stayed here till 692 AD.
• Itsing had received education at Nalanda Mahavihara. According to him, there were 5,000 monks living in Nalanda at that time. He has also discussed about Vikramshila Mahavihara.

Dharmaswamin (Tibet)

• The Buddhist monk Dharmaswamin was a Tibetan traveller. He came to India during the decline of the Pala rulers in the 13th century.
• He came to Nalanda Mahavihara to receive Buddhist education.
• From the travelogue made by Dharmaswamin, it is known that Nalanda Mahavihara was destroyed by a Turkic ruler Bakhtiyar Khilji between 1197-98 AD.

Mulla Takia

• During the reign of Akbar a traveler named Mulla Taqi traveled from Jaunpur to Bengal and described that area in his account.
• A detailed discussion is found in his description, especially in relation to the Darbhanga region.

Abdul Latif (Iran)

• Abdul Latif was also among the travelers who came to Bihar during the medieval period (Akbar’s reign).
• He traveled from Agra to Rajmahal by the Ganga river route.

Muhammad Sadiq (Iran)

• He came during the reign of Jahangir.
• In 1619-20 AD, when his father was appointed to the post of Diwan Khalisa in Patna, he also came with him and stayed for four years.
• The name of his book is Subah-e-Sadiq.

Mullah Babahani

• He was an Iranian cleric who traveled several times to Bihar and later settled in Patna.

Rolf Finch

• He was an English traveler.
• He toured India during the Mughal period (Akbar’s reign) between 1585-87 and also visited Bihar.
• According to Rolf Finch, the people of Patna dig the ground in search of gold and the residents here had a dark conduct.

Peter Mundy

• Peter Mundy was an English traveler and merchant who came to Patna in 1632 AD (the time of Shah Jahan).

Manrique

• Manrique was a traveler from Holland and he came to India in the first half of the 17th century in 1612 AD (the time of Shah Jahan).
• He has described a special type of boats (mayurpankhi).

John Tavernier

• He was a French traveler who came to Patna around 1665-66 AD (Aurangzeb’s era).
• He talked about the trade of shora by the Dutch residents in Patna.

Manuchi

• He was an Italian traveler who came to Patna in the middle of the 17^th century (the time of Shah Jahan).
• According to him, the population of Patna at that time was about 2 lakhs.

Bishop Hneevar

• He was an English clergyman who passed through many cities of Bihar in 1824 AD while traveling to Eastern India by the Ganga river-route.

John Marshall (British)

• This English traveler came to India during the reign of Aurangzeb He was a doctor.
• He discussed about the structure, living conditions etc. of Patna city.