| Telhara | |
| Other Name: | Telhāḍa |
| Settlement Type: | village |
| Pushpin Map: | India Bihar |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Bihar, India |
| Coordinates: | 25.2263°N 85.1816°W |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: |  India |
| Subdivision Type1: | State |
| Subdivision Name1: | Bihar |
| Subdivision Type2: | District |
| Subdivision Name2: | Nalanda |
| Subdivision Type3: | Gram Panchayat |
| Subdivision Name3: | Ekangarsarai |
| Unit Pref: | Metric |
| Population Density Km2: | auto |
| Demographics Type1: | Languages |
| Demographics1 Title1: | Spoken |
| Demographics1 Info1: | Hindi, Magadhi |
| Timezone1: | IST |
| Utc Offset1: | +5:30 |
| Postal Code Type: | PIN |
| Postal Code: | 801306 |
| Registration Plate: | BR-21 |
| Blank1 Name Sec1: | Nearest cities |
| Blank1 Info Sec1: | Jehanabad (22 km) Bihar Sharif (35 km) Patna (63 km) |
Telhara is a village in Ekangarsarai block of Nalanda district, in Bihar. It is also the site of the Telhara monastery which dates back to the 1st-century CE.[1]
See main article: Telhara monastery.
Telhara was the site of a Buddhist monastery in ancient India. It has been mentioned as Teladhaka in the writings of the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang, who visited the place in the 7th century CE.[2] It is mentioned in an inscription found at Nālandā which mentions a temple restored a man named Bālāditya, a Jyāvisa of Telāḍhaka who had emigrated from Kauśāmbī, in the eleventh year of Mahipala Deva. [3]
It has been also mentioned in the Ain-i-Akbari as Tiladah, and is shown as one of the 46 mahals (administrative units) of the Bihar sarkar. Telhara was shown as a pargana in the maps prepared by the East India Company administration during 1842–45.[4]
The ruins of Telhara were mentioned in an 1872 letter by A. M. Broadley, the then Magistrate of Nalanda. Broadley noted that a large number of stone and metal images were often found during the digging of graves at the top of one of the mounds. Metal images found were melted down.[5] The State Government of Bihar started a new archaeological excavation of the site in December 2009. The work unearthed ancient pottery, antiques, and the remains of a three-storeyed structure mentioned by Hiuen Tsang. Evidence of prayer halls and residential cells in the monastery have been found. The excavation revealed the following chronological layers:[4]
A number of sculptures from the site had been moved to museums during the British Raj. The Indian Museum in Kolkata houses the Maitreya and the twelve-armed Avalokiteswar images from Telhara. A Pala sculpture from the site is present at the Rietberg Museum in Zurich. Telhara has a mosque, which is said to have been built with the materials carried from the ruins of the Buddhist monastery.[4] One pillar contained an inscription that mentions the place-name Telāḍhaka.
Remains of an ancient university (Mahavihara) on the site were unearthed in 2014.[6] [7]
A small museum named Baladitya Museum has been established to store some of the artifacts found.
Telhara comes under the administration of the Ekangarsarai gram panchayat. There are 5 census villages in the Telhara area:[8]