Colonial bungalow (late-nineteenth century)

(Bankipore)Until the early twentieth century, Bankipore (or Bankipur) was the administrative centre of the Patna Division of Bihar, which came under the rule of the East India Company following the battle of Buxar in 1764. Bankipore lies along an east-west axis on the south bank of the Ganga, some four kilometers west from the medieval Patna City, or Azimabad. Among the principal remains of the colonial period in Bankipore are the District Collectorate, the Civil Court, and mansions such as the impressive Darbhanga House (now the Patna Arts College), built in the late nineteenth century by the great philanthropist, the Maharaja of Darbhanga, Lachmaneshwar Singh. The Bankipore cemetery, which has the graves of minor Company officials and indigo planters, the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, founded by the Maulvi Khuda Bakhsh in 1891, and the Catholic Mission, are among the other historic sites of Bankipore. Bankipore is also notable for its several ghats, which include the old Jahaz Ghat, from where plied the daily ferry across the river, and the Darbhanga Ghat. Incidentally, the fictional town of Chandrapore, which is the setting of E.M. Forster’s novel, A Passage to India (1924), is based on colonial Bankipore. The Marabar Hills of the novel corresponds to the Rajgir hills, a few miles away from Patna and the site of hoary Buddhist-Mauryan remains.