Patna Museum

The old Jadu Ghar, founded in 1917, holds Mauryan sculpture, Buddhist relics, and a 200-million-year-old fossilised tree

The older of Patna's two museums, the Patna Museum opened in 1917 in an Indo-Saracenic building near Buddha Smriti Park. When the Bihar Museum opened in 2015, many of its star objects -- including the Didarganj Yakshi -- moved to the new building, but the Patna Museum still holds the Buddha relic casket from Vaishali, Gandharan reliefs, terracotta from Sunga sites, and a gallery of British-era paintings.

The interior is dusty and labelling is inconsistent, but the collection remains rich and the building itself, with its arched corridors and inner courtyards, is worth the visit. Closed on Mondays.

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A story
Locals call the museum the Jadu Ghar -- the Magic House -- because when it opened in 1917 it was the first place in Bihar where the public could see prehistoric fossils and ancient sculpture side by side. The single most surprising object is a fossilised tree trunk over two hundred million years old, brought from the Rajmahal hills.