The Patna museum is located in the city Patna, Bihar. It is one of the most popular museums in Patna which is also famous as the Jadu Ghar. It has a wide collection of ancient artifacts of India, British age, and middle age objects. It is storing around 50,000 art objects which are rarely found anywhere. In 1912, after the separation of the Bihar with the West Bengal the decision of constructing the museum was decided by the authorities. It was constructed in 1917 for the purpose of storing historical artifacts. In 1929, it was declared as an open museum for the public. It is the best place to visit for those who love and learn about the historical culture.
It has a huge collection of objects which are related to the Mauryan, Sunga, Mughals, Gupta and others period. It is a beautifully designed building of British age. This museum was founded by the Lieutenant Governor, Sir Edward Gait. The museum is covered by a beautifully designed park. The museum has a large collection of statues and 45,000 exhibits. Due to the limitation of the space, you can only see the only little percentage of the total.
On the one corner of the museum, there is a Shatabdi Smarak which is the brick statue of the Lord Buddha and stupa. On the other side of the museum, there is a cafeteria. There are also some government offices in the museum including the Bihar Research Society. On the back side of the museum, there is a Jan Nayak Karpuri Thakur Auditorium.
The building of the museum has 2 floors. The artifacts are arranged in the different galleries present in the museum. The gallery of natural history has a collection of the variety of preserved animals including tigers, panthers, birds, and others. The stone sculpture gallery has a beautifully designed statue of Didarganj Yakshi. This gallery also contains some other artifacts. The visitors can view the ancient items related to the period of Mauryan, Gupta, Kushan in the Terracotta gallery. The museum also has many other galleries. Some of them are Weapon gallery, Bronze gallery, Painting gallery, and many others.
The museum has many interesting and attractive things. It has the ashes of the Lord Buddha, which are kept in a Relic Casket. One of the most attractive things in the museum is the 3rd-century statue of ‘Didarganj Yakshi’. This statue belongs to the period of Ashoka. It was constructed with great skills. It is a statue of the woman whose one hand is missing. The beauty of this statue has been appreciated in the whole world. The museum also has a 53 feet height tree which was gifted to the museum. This tree fossil is more than 200 million years old.
The opening time of the museum is from 10:30 AM to 4:30 pm. It remains closed on Mondays. The entry fee for Indians is Rs 15 and for a foreigner is Rs 250. The charges for using the mobile camera are Rs 20 and for a flash camera, it is Rs 100.
