Patliputra - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Patliputra

Encyclopedia

Pāṭaliputra also called Nagari , is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal...

: पाटलिपुत्र), modern-day Patna

Patna

Paṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...

, was a city in ancient India, originally built by Ajatashatru

Ajatashatru

Ajatasatru was a king of the Magadha empire in north India. He was the son of King Bimbisara, the Great Monarch of Magadha. He was contemporary to Mahavira and Buddha. He took over the kingdom of Magadha from his father forcefully by imprisoning him...

in 490 BC as a small fort (Pāṭaligrama) near the River Ganges, and later the capital of the ancient Mahājanapadas

Mahajanapadas

Mahājanapadas , literally "great realms", were ancient Indian kingdoms or countries...

kingdom of Magadha

Magadha

Magadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas or kingdoms in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganga; its first capital was Rajagriha then Pataliputra...

.
Its key central location in north central India

North India

North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...

led rulers of successive dynasties to base their administrative capital here, from the Nandas

Nanda Dynasty

The Nanda Empire originated from the region of Magadha in Ancient India during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. At its greatest extent, the Nanda Empire extended from Bengal in the east, to Punjab in the west and as far south as the Vindhya Range...

, Mauryans, Sungas and the Guptas down to the Palas. In the Lord Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

's day it was a village known as Pataligrama. He visited it shortly before his death and prophesied it would be great but would face destruction either by fire, water, or civil war. Two important councils were held here, the first

First Buddhist council

The First Buddhist council was convened in the year following the Buddha's Parinibbana, which is 543–542 BCE according to Theravada tradition, at various earlier dates according to certain Mahayana traditions, and various later dates according to certain Western estimates. According to late...

at the death of the Buddha

Parinirvana

In Buddhism, parinirvana is the final nirvana, which occurs upon the death of the body of someone who has attained complete awakening...

and the second in the reign of Asoka. During the reign of Emperor Asoka in the 3rd century BCE, it was one of the world's largest cities, with a population of 150,000-300,000. Pataliputra reached the pinnacle of prosperity when it was the capital of the great Mauryan Emperors, Chandragupta Maurya

Chandragupta Maurya

Chandragupta Maurya , was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta succeeded in conquering most of the Indian subcontinent. Chandragupta is considered the first unifier of India and its first genuine emperor...

and Ashoka the Great. The city prospered under the Mauryas and a Greek ambassador Megasthenes

Megasthenes

Megasthenes was a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica.He was born in Asia Minor and became an ambassador of Seleucus I of Syria possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra, India. However the exact date of his embassy is uncertain...

resided there and left a detailed account of its splendour. The city also became a flourishing Buddhist centre boasting a number of important monasteries. It remained the capital of the Gupta dynasty (3rd–6th centuries CE) and the Pala Dynasty (8th-12th centuries CE). The city was largely in ruins when visited by Hsüan-tsang, and suffered further damage at the hands of Muslim raiders

Mughal (tribe)

The term Mughal is simply a Turkic word and many groups in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh use the term Mughal to describe themselves...

in the 12th century. Afterwards Sher Shah Suri

Sher Shah Suri

Sher Shah Suri , birth name Farid Khan, also known as Sher Khan , was the founder of the short-lived Sur Empire in northern India, with its capital at Delhi, before its demise in the hands of the resurgent Mughal Empire...

made Pataliputra his capital and changed the name to modern Patna

Patna

Paṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...

.

Though parts of the city have been excavated, much of it still lies buried beneath modern Patna

Patna

Paṭnā , is the capital of the Indian state of Bihar and the second largest city in Eastern India . Patna is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world...

. During the Mauryan period, the city was described as being shaped as parallelogram, approximately 1.5 miles wide and 9 miles long. Its wooden walls were pierced by 64 gates. These were thought to have been converted to strong stone walls during the time of Ashoka. Situated at the confluence of the Ganges and Gandhaka rivers, Pataliputra soon came to dominate the riverine trade of the Indo-Gangetic plain

Indo-Gangetic plain

The northern Plains also known as the Indo - Gangetic Plain and The North Indian River Plain is a large and fertile plain encompassing most of northern and eastern India, the most populous parts of Pakistan, parts of southern Nepal and virtually all of Bangladesh...

s during Magadha's early imperial period. It was a great center of trade and commerce and attracted merchants and intellectuals, such as the famed Chanakya

Chanakya

Chānakya was a teacher to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta , and the first Indian emperor generally considered to be the architect of his rise to power. Traditionally, Chanakya is also identified by the names Kautilya and VishnuGupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise...

, from all over India.

Etymology

The etymology of Pataliputra is unclear. "Putra" means son, and "pāţali" is a species of rice or the plant Bignonia suaveolens. One traditional etymology holds that the city was named after the plant. Another tradition says that Pāṭaliputra means the son of Pāṭali, who was the daughter of Raja Sudarshan. As it was known as Pāṭali-grama originally, some scholars believe that Pāṭaliputra is a transformation of Pāṭalipura, "Pāṭali town".

Etymology

Further reading