Patna Museum, Bihar

Patna Museum is the state museum of the Indian state of Bihar. Built in 1917 during the British Times to house the historical artefacts found in the vicinity of Patna, it is in the style of Mughal and Rajput architecture and is known locally as the Jadu Ghar. Items on display in the multipurpose museum include archaeological objects, coins, art objects, paintings, instruments, textiles, paintings, thankas, bronze images and sculptures and terra cotta images by Hindu and Buddhist artists.

It has a rare collection of British-period paintings depicting day-to-day life, as well as a fine collection related to the first President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. It also houses a First World War cannon. The world-famous Didarganj Yakshi statue, discovered on a Ganges riverbank in 1917, is the museum’s most prized collection. Beginning November 2009, a project was started to build a replacement museum in Patna to enable the display of larger collections of up to 20,000 objects.