Please join the movement to restore the glory of Patliputra and Bihar!

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet, William Shakespeare famously said. The bard of Stratford was wrong. Names matter.

The pace of name changes may have accelerated, but it is not a new phenomenon. Places have been changing names for as long as there have been places and names.

Orissa is now known as Odisha. Bombay became Mumbai, Madras was changed to Chennai, Bangalore to Bengaluru and Calcutta is now officially known as Kolkata.  Allahabad has become Prayagraj, Faizabad will be known as Ayodhya.

Bihar is an etymological error that needs correction. Bihar originated from “Vihar”, or place of dwelling of Buddhist Vikhus, since the region was the epicentre of Buddhism.

Some of the prominent Vihararas ones were Nalanda Vihar, Vikramshila Vihar, Odantpuri Vihar and others. The name of the state Bihar originated from the same word, Vihar. The word Vihar is derived from Sanskrit and Pali which means dwellings. The Vihars were the place of dwelling of Buddhist Vikhus.

The influence of Bengali and other languages and dialects of the eastern region, which do not have the sound ‘v’ but have the sound ‘b’ in their vocabulary, led to the pronunciation Bihar instead of Vihar.

I will appeal to people now to come in support of the demand to rename Bihar as Vihar and Patna as Patliputra! 

Patliputra was the capital of India for nearly 1,000 years. It came into existence in 487 BC, it has given many things to the world. Patna should be renamed to Patliputra — the once mighty capital of ancient India. 

I know that the demand for changing the name of 'Bihar' to 'Vihar' OR 'Magadh' and 'Patna' to Patliputra' is not new and several petitions had come up before as well.

But its important to recognise the weight of the 'brand value' a name carries. Both Patliputra and Vihar have a brand value and legacy that symbolises the glorious past that this region had!