The University of Patna, founded in 1917, consists of a number of colleges admitted to the degree standard, and of colleges and schools admitted to the intermediate standard. The majority are in Patna, viz., the Patna college, Behar National college, Patna Training college, Patna Law college, Behar National college of engineering, Prince of Wales Medical college and Patna New college. A Senate house was opened in 1926. A scheme of de velopment has been adopted and new buildings, which will include a Science college, are under construction, or proposed.
The DISTRICT OF PATNA has an area of 2,068 sq.m. ; pop. (1931) 1,846,474. Throughout the greater part of its extent the district is a level plain; but towards the south the Rajgir hills (q.v.) project into it and divide it from the district of Gaya for about 3o miles. The soil is for the most part alluvial, and the country along the bank of the Ganges is peculiarly fertile. The general line of drainage is from west to east ; and high ground along the south of the Ganges forces back the rivers flowing from Gaya district. The result is that during the rains a belt of low-lying country four or five miles from its bank is flooded. The chief rivers are the Ganges and the Son. The only other river of any conse quence is the Punpun, which is chiefly remarkable for the number of petty irrigation channels which it supplies. So much of the river is thus diverted that only a small portion of its water ever reaches the Ganges. The chief crops are rice, wheat, barley, maize
and pulse. The Son canal irrigates 150,000 acres to the north west ; elsewhere irrigation is largely practised from private channels and also from wells.
Apart from Patna city, the district contains many places of historic interest. The Rajgir hills (q.v.) are not only associated with the life of Buddha, but contain remains of prehistoric and early historic date. Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, died at Pawapuri, which is consequently a place of Jain pilgrimage. Nalanda (the modern village of Bargaon) was a famous seat of Buddhist learning and culture : it has been called "the Oxford of Buddhist India." Sir A. Cunningham states that he met the finest sculptures of India here; and excavations begun in 1916 have disclosed a maze of viliaras (monasteries) with seven levels of occupation and buildings of nine different periods. Between the 5th and I2th centuries A.D. the town of Behar was the site of another Buddhist vihara, whence its name; it was the capital of South Behar under the Pala kings and then under Mohammedan governors until the 16th century.
The DIVISION OF PATNA comprises the districts of Patna, Gaya and Shahabad, south of the Ganges. Area, 11,149 sq.m., pop. (1921) 5,544,038. It formerly also included four districts north of the Ganges, viz., Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur and Dar bhanga, which, in 1908, were formed into the division of Tirhut.