Name- RAJGRIH
25:5’::86:17
CONTINENT- Asia COUNTRY-India
STATE-Bihar
DISTRICT- Nalanda Distance from Delhi-1110km Distance from Patna- 96km
PINCode-803116StdCode956112
HASL-1500’
RIVER-Sarswati CLIMATE-Tropicl
Approach-Air(up to Patna))TrainBus,Taxi
LANGUAGE-HindiMagahi
LODGING-Hotel,Lodge,RH.Dharamsala,IB,Site
campus restshed,
Railwayrest room.FOOD-Indian
cooked rice,pulse,sabji,bhujia,litti
Chokha
,Jalebi,kachauri,puri,Singhara,nimki ,egg, chicken,mutton
Fishetc DRINK-Sweet water
for drinking purposes plus hard and soft bottled or pouched
packed drink. TRANSPORT-Auto
Cyclerickshaw,minibus,trecker,horsecart.
ABOUT THE SITE-The siteRajgir orRajgrih has importance
from Historical,Archaeological,Religious,Pauranic,and natural angles.It was
kingdom of old Magadh state,which was bound by
river in thr
-ee sides and one mountain
range.In historical past its name appear
as
Rajgiri,Giribraj,Magadhpur,Basumati,Kusagrapur,Bimbsarpur,B
-rahadrathpuretc .Present
properRajgir is encircled by five hillocks
namely Vipulachal,Ratnagiri,Udaigri,Swarngiri,
and Vaivawgiri.
So locally it is called Panch
Pahari also.It has seen the activities of
Jarasandh during Mahabharat
time .Bimbsar and Ajatsatru during their respective Indian medival history time. Important subsites
for
general visits by the tourists are-1.Ratnagiri with Vishwasantist
-up
and ropeway ride. Vishwashantisup a Bodhjc domal
architectural
structure with rack pocket in .The hill is situated south of Brahmkund hot
spring. Height of the stup is160’.It was constructed byJapanese Bodh Vickshu
sangh in 1969.It contains remnants of LordBudha with 7 gems ia beautiful box.
Small statues of lord Budha in four poses are kept in the wall pockets all
around the stup in four directions A priest is apponted for daily worship of
the lord For easier and entertaining reach on to the stupthe state tourism department of the Govt
has established a ropeway project with
120 racks from foot hills of Gridh parwat
to top of Ratnagiri hill.Cost
incurred is about 19 lakhs.A ticket fee
from Rs 10 to 15 is charged to avail ropeway facility.There are
mini markets and restaurant in the foot hill
at the base of the ropeway station.2.SECURITY WALL-During the time of
lord Budha Rajgrih had population of about 18 lakhs It was bound by security
wall and security gate. Half of the population remained inside the security
wall durng the night after the security gate was closed and half of the population used to remain
outside the bound
-ry security wall.There were
four security gates namely Sun gate between Vipulgiri and Baibhargiri2Elephant
gate between Giribraj and Ratnagiri
andnUdaigiri4 Horse gate between Ratnagiri and ChakragiriRemnants of boundary
walls are still seen on all the hills covering
about 40 to 50 km while going to Vishwashanti
stup or Ratnagiri. Height of
the walls varies from 7’ to 12’.Slab co
-constructed walls are vividly seen on Udaigiri near Banganga on
taking entry through
roadways from Gaya to Rajgir. Length
of the
stone slabs is about 3feet
and thickness is about 8” to 10”.Accordin
-g to Mahabharat Bhim and
Arjun with lord Krishna entered Rajgri
-h by breaking peak of
“Chetak hill” to fight with Jarasandh. Udaig
-iri has steep vertical rise. One has to trail about 1000 steps to rise to the top of Udaigiri.There is a very big and
gigantic statue of lor
-d Mahabir on this
hill.IthasbothDigambarandSwetambar jain temp
-le.
3.WHEEL MARK-Wheel marks of very 2 heavy vehicles(Rath of
Jarasandh) are also seen on
Quartzite Phylite Schist rocks while going to Vishwashantistup.4.JAIL OF
BIMBSAR-While going to
-wards Vishwashantistup a
place is located bounded by stone slabs.
Archaeologists have located
it as Jail of Bimbsar. Historical literat
-ure reveal that king Bimbsar was kept in jail by his son at that place.According to
pauranic story of Mahabharat Jail was constructed byJarasandh to keep the
Kshatriya kings who were defeated in war 5.JARASANDH KI BAITHAK-While going upw
-ards to Baibhar hill through Brahmkund Saptkund or Satgharwa a
big platform of stone is seen
It is called Baithak of Jarasandh. Myt
-hological story goes that a
meeting of all the Brahmins wwas done at
this place by king Jarasandh who
tookpart in Sradh of
the father of the king.
Jarasandh donated lands to all the Brahmins
and gave riches to maintain
the land.Lord Budha also did sangh sangtimeeting) at this place.6OLDEST SHIV
TEMPLE OF MAG
_ADH-Upward ahead of Jarasandh ki
Baithak there is a very old
temple of lord shiv. It is
made of block and slabs of stones.Shivlin
-g is also very big. Myth
about this temple is that by blessing of Ch
-andkausik muni lord Shiv had
to come to Baibhar hill to bless Jara
-sandh.So he alongwith his
subordinate kings did worship lordShiv
here .Devotees take water
from Brahmkund and pour it on the Shiv
-ling here for Jalavisek on
festive occasions these days also.7SAPT
PARNI CAVE-There is a cave on
Baibhar hill with seven tunnel br
-anching. So it is called
Saptparni cave.It is said that one
branch of the tunnel opens in some
mutth(residential gathering of saints)Entr
-y inside the cave is there
but after few yards it becomes to
constri
-cted to go in Religious say
is that during time of Malmass out of 33crore gods(devtas) of hindus, few get
assembled in this cave. So
this cave is worshipped like
a temple. This place is also important
for Budhist religions.Because this is the place where 500 Bodh Bhi
-kshus did Sangati( meeting)
after death of lord Budha.This meetin
-g continued for about 7
months under guidance of Aysmanmaha –kasyap It was decided to record
teachings of Budha under the then
scripture And it was there
that1.Vinay Pitak.2Sut pitak3Abhidham pitak.or tri pitak was was written and kept in Rajgir.This hill has
also been reffered as “Pitpal Guha”in Budhist literature. Further ahead of this
there are Jain temples which are of recent nature.
8SURAJKUND AND VIPULGIRI-
Vipulgiri is numberone hill
in jain literature. Locally
it is called the eastern hill also.The hot spring Surajkund is in the foot hill
slope of this mountain. Steps
to rise over the top of the
hill are available from there.There are
four Jain temples on this
hill. It is digamber jain in tradition. The
first Samosaran of Bhagwan
Mahabir was done on this hill.Gautam
and other eleven Gandharwas
were baptized here.On the occasion
of 25thcentenary of nirwan of
Mahabir Samosaran temple has been constructed in 1986.Four statues of Mahairs
of red stones in medita
-tion poses has also been
established here.Theheight of the statue is
72’.The temple is made of
white marble.The statues has been fixed
in all four dtrections. The
cost incurred was 50 lakhs.There are fo
-ot prints of jain saints also on the Vipul giri hill. The hotspringSu
-rajkund is indicative of god
of sun in Eastern hill.Taking bath inth
-e hot spring and worshipping
sun god bestows good ishes on the d
-evotees.9SWARN GIRI-This
hill has straightway vertical slope from the foot hill. So trecking over it is
difficult.That is why much
is not known about it.However
Jain religious literatures show that there are two digamber and one swetamber jain
temples and one temple of lord Shiva on
this hill.10.MANIAR MTH-After entering
the valley encircled by the
five hills visitors come across a memori
-al old structure It has
description in Mahabharat also.It is called “Maniar Math” Close by visit to it and seeing the
structure by rising over few steps gives
idea that the place must have been gath
-ering and residences of
thick volume of population.11SWARN BHANDAR-Behind brahmkund and saptarisikund
on Baibhar hill
itself, on a little bit upper slope there is swanbhandar
cave. It is also called treasury of Jarasandh or Bimbsar.There are number of
bullet or bombshell marks on
it .It is said that Britishers tried to break it by bomb shell or bullets but
it went in vain.12JARASANDH KA AKHARA OR BATTLE
GROUND OF JARASANDH-Ahead of Swarnbhandar a piece of land area ofabout
20’x2o’ bound by broken stone slabs and filled with fine
earth is called Jarasandh ka
akhara. Description of this place is also found in Mahabharat where pt is
mentioned that Bhim and Jarasan
-dh wrestled there for 28
days when Jarasandh was defeated and
murdered.It is said that
Jarasandh used to water this Akhara with milk.13VIRAYTAN-It is Jain
temple.There is museum of drftwo
-ood ,terracotta art and
articles in its campus It is also calld Brasni
art temple.Tirthankar Mahabir
lifestyle has been shown in 100 pannels from childhood to nirvana in this
temple museum. 14VE
NUBAN-King Bimbsar had a big
garden for his amusement and
Retreat. It was called
Venuban After getting enlightened at Bodhg
-aya lord Budha came to
Rajgir preaching people and begging on
way King Bimbsar was not only
pleased by his philosophy but he
became deciple.He also
donated Venuban to the budhist sangh for
their meeting and stay.Latter
on it came to be known as Benuban
Mahabihar. It is located near
Rajgir Gaya road and Ratnagiri hill.
It is full of katha and sami
trees. Some furnaces of burning katha
Wood for making katha can
also be seen.15AMRABAN OR MAN
-GO GARDEN of JIWAK-This is the site where Mahabir Tirthank
-ar addressesd the gathering
meeting in a mango garden.The site is
km away from the Venuban between Baibhar giri and
Ratnagiri.Fe
-w mango trees can be seen in
this bushy jungle with dear monkeys
and other zoological
species.16HOT SPRINGS-All description of Rajgir remains half told if the
tourists are not made aquainted and geta touch or take bath in the hot springs of Rajgir.As the
Ganges
is the life line of history
and geography of India so are the hotsprings of Rajgir are remnantsof witnss to its historical religious and pauranic facts. There are about 14 hot springs here.
Out of these 7 are on the NE foot hills of Baibhar giri.These
are
1Saptrisikund2Brahmkund3Vyaskund4Markandeykund5Gaga6Ja
-muna kund7Anant risi kund.
Similarly western hill slope of Vipul
giri has 1Sitakund2Suryakund3
Ganeshkund4Chandrakund5Ramk
-und 6Sringirisikund.7Makhdimkund.
A mention has been made in Vayu Puran
about origin of hot springs.King Basu once did a Yagya He invited Brahma his great grand father to
attend theYag
-aya Water of all the
pilgrimages was required the ceremonies of the yagya. So Brahma by his occult
power wished sacred water of all tirthas to appear through the havan kund of
yagya .Brahmas command was obeyed and
water of tirthas appeared through the havan kund. So it became hot and the
first kund was named Brahm
kund Similarly other kunds
had been named after the name of the
saints and rishis of tthat
period.Brahmkund is the hottest among all
with temperature of 45degree
centigrade.It has sulphur and trace of radioactive elements which helps in curing
skin and stomach diseases. OTHER SITES-Besides the above described sites few
more sites are worth visit .
These are Burma temple,Temple of anand maee maa,Ramkrishna math,Pipla grih or Pipla
cave,Kal
-shila or rishigiri Sapp
saundic in Shitban etc.FESTIVE SEASON
-Hot springs of Rajgir and it being situated on state highway and
railway route gives it
pliverage of 24 hour festive mood.But it has special festive occasions which
can be narrated as 1 First January
or the first day of the
year,when it attracts large number of local
visitors.2 Makar sankrantri
on 14th January.3Malmas fair after each three years when one day is added to the smallest month,
the February of the year4 Rajgir mahotsaw in the month of Nov-Dec .
Malmass is festival of excess
month.According to stories of
Purans demon king
Hirankashyap ,the father of Bhakt Prahlad got
Pleased Brahma by his
devotion and meditation and received His
Blessings that he should not
be killed by up till now creation of Brahma That is neither by man ,or animal
,nor during day or night
not in the time division of
month or year created by Brahma. After that Brahma felt his mistake and went to
Lord Vishnu. Then Vishnu created thirteen month of the year and took Nrisingha awtar to kill Hirankashyap. This excess month is in
auspisous for
shubh karya(good works) like marriage, mundane,
ygyopawit etc.
But according to religious
traditions 33 crores gods of Hindus come
to reside at Rajgir during the period
and all the ceremonial
functions can be done here..
The fair is organized in May-June for
about a month.
GUIDEAnumberofguidesareavailablfromgovtagencies,privatetourism
agency,and local people. Contact district public relation office for further
details.
PRECAUTION-The area is badly
naxal affecyed .
REMARKS-Saving law and order
problem the site area has wonde
-rful future porospect for
further development.
