Telhara is a village famous for the Buddhist monastery. This monastery is now completely in ruins and it was undertaken by Archaeological Survey of India.

Location of Telhara
Telhara is a green and pollution free village in Nalanda district of Bihar.

History of Telhara
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. 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 British East India Company administration during 1842-1845.

Ruins in Telhara
The archaeological ruins of Telhara were mentioned in an 1872 letter by A. M. Broadley, the then Magistrate of Nalanda. The State Government of Bihar started a new 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. The evidence of prayer halls and residential cells in the monastery have been found. The excavation revealed the chronological layers.

Sculptures Found from Telhara
Telhara has the vast number of sculptures excavated from the land. The ruins had been moved to museums during the rule of British Government in India. The Indian Museum in Kolkata, West Bengal 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.

Administration of Telhara
Telhara comes under the administration of the Ekangarsarai gram panchayat. There are 5 census villages in the Telhara area that are Hajipur, Khajepura, Rasulpur, Telhara and Telhara Sani.