Vaishali is 60 km from Patna, connected by the 5.5 km long Mahatma Gandhi Bridge. A famous pilgrimage in Bihar, Vaishali is deemed to embrace people of two main religions i.e. Buddhism and Jainism. Buddha announced the approaching of his Mahaparinirvana here. During one of his visits there, Buddha was offered a bowl of honey by a monkey; this incident is mentioned as one of the eight great events in his life. This city has played a very important life in Lord Buddha as he spent here five years after his enlightenment.

It was at Vaishali that a number of people embraced after Buddha had displayed divine presentations of his spirituality. It is believed that around eighty four thousand people had adopted Buddhism at that time. Vaishali is also very important for the fact that it was here that women were made part of Sangha for the first time in history of Buddhism. Mahaprajapati Gautami, who was Gautam Buddha’s foster mother, had also joined the order at Vaishali with other 500 Shakya-women.