Tekari is a city and a municipality in

Gaya district } Gaya district is one of the thirty-eight districts of the Indian state of Bihar. It was officially established on 3 October 1865. The district has a common boundary with the state of Jharkhand to the south. Gaya city is both the district head ...

in the Indian state of

Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...

and was the centre of erstwhile Bhumihar

Tekari Raj Tekari Raj (sometimes spelled Tikari Raj) was a zamindari estate belonging to a family of the Bhumihar Brahmin community in South Bihar. They controlled 2,046 villages on their estate, which covered a area, near to the town of Gaya. Rajas o ...

. Maharaja Gopalsaran was the king of this area in British times.

Etymology

South Bihar South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz' ...

, the representative of several communities was the Tekari family, whose great estate,

, in Gaya, dates back to the early 18th century. In the Mughal period, Tekari evolved as a rich estate, protected by

Bhumihar Bhumihars, also called Babhan, are a Hindu caste mainly found in Bihar (including the Mithila region), the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, and Nepal. The Bhumihars claim Brahmin statu ...

kings, who were a part of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

. The royal emblem of the Kingdom of Tekari was a pigeon attacking over an eagle sat on the perch of a tree. Pundits concluded, "this jungle of tetris (tetri, a kind of tree) is the place where the fort should be made," and declared it very lucky. Tetri, vis-à-vis Tekari. (Tekari used to be a popular place name during the Muslim period). It perhaps indicated a place office for local administration and tax collection and residence of local chief. It may also have been a market place. Maharaja Hit Narayan Singh of Tekari was said to have been "a man of a religious turn of mind... who became an ascetic and left his vast property in the hands of his wife" shortly after inheriting much of the estate in the 1840s.

Demographics

India census, Tekari had a population of 17,615. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Tekari has an average literacy rate of 66%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 74%, and female literacy is 57%. In Tekari, 17% of the population is under 6 years of age.

References

{{Magadh Division Cities and towns in Gaya district Princely states of India Forts in Bihar