History of Patna

History
Patna (पटना), the capital of Bihar state, India, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world and the History of Patna spans at least three millennia. Patna has the distinction of being associated with the two most ancient religions of the world, namely, Buddhism and Jainism, and has seen the rise and fall of might empires of the Mauryas and the Guptas. It has been a part of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, and has seen the rule of the Nawabs of Bengal, the East India Company and the British Raj. Patna has been one of the nerve centers of First War of Independence, participated actively in India's Independence movement, and emerged in the post-independent India as the most populous city of East India after Kolkata.

Prelude

Patna, by its current name or any other name, finds no mention in the ancient Indian texts like the Vedas and the Puranas, or the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The first references to the place is observed about 2500 years ago in Jain and Buddhist scriptures.

Recorded history of the city begins in the year 490 BC when Ajatashatru, the king of Magadh, wanted to shift his capital from the hilly Rajgriha to a more strategically located place to combat the Lichivis of Vaishali. He chose a site on the bank of Ganges and fortified the area which developed into Patna.

From that time, the city has had a continuous history, a record claimed by few cities in the world. During its history and existence of more than two millennia, Patna has been known by different names : Pataligram, Pataliputra, Palibothra, Kusumpur, Pushpapura, Azimabad, and the present day Patna.

Gautam Buddha passed through this place in the last year of his life, and he had prophesized a great future for this place, but at the same time, he predicted its ruin from flood, fire, and feud.

The Name

Etymologically, Patna derives its name from the word Pattan, which means port in Sanskrit. It may be indicative of the location of this place on the confluence of four rivers, which functioned as a port. It is also believed that the city derived its name from Patan Devi, the presiding deity of the city, and her temple is one of the shakti peethas.

One legend ascribes the origin of Patna to a mythological king, Putraka, who created Patna by a magic stroke for his queen Patali, literally Trumpet flower, which gives it its ancient name Pataligram. It is said that in honour of the first born to the queen, the city was named Pataliputra. Gram is the Sanskrit for a village and Putra means a son.

The Haryankas

According to tradition, the Haryanka dynasty founded in 684 BC, whose capital was Rajagriha, later Pataliputra, the present day Patna. This dynasty lasted till 424 BC, when it was overthrown by the Nanda dynasty. This period saw the development of two of India's major religions that started from Magadha. it is not true Bimbisara was responsible for expanding the boundaries of his kingdom through matrimonial alliances and conquest. The land of Kosala fell to Magadha in this way. Bimbisara (543-493 BCE ) was imprisoned and killed by his son Ajatashatru(491-461 BCE) who then became his successor, and under whose rule the dynasty reached its largest extent. Ajatashatru went to war with the Licchavi several times. Ajatashatru, is thought to have ruled from 491-461 BCE and moved his capital of the Magadha kingdom from Rajagriha to Patliputra. Udayabhadra eventually succeeded his father, Ajatashatru, under him Patliputra became the largest city in the world.

The Nandas

The Nanda dynasty was established by an illegitimate son of the king Mahanandin of the previousShishunaga dynasty. Mahapadma Nanda died at the age of 88, ruling the bulk of this 100-yea dynasty. The Nandas were followed by the Maurya dynasty.

The Mauryas

With the rise of the Mauryan empire (321 BC-185 BC), Patna, then called Pataliputra became the seat of power and nerve center of the Indian subcontinent. From Pataliputra, the famed emperor Chandragupta ruled a vast empire, stretching from the Bay of Bengal to Afghanistan. Chandragupta established a strong centralized state with a complex administration under the tutelage of Kautilya.

Early Mauryan Patliputra was mostly built with wooden structures. The wooden buildings and palaces rose to several stories and were surrounded by parks and ponds. Another distinctive feature of the city was the drainage system. Water course from every street drained into a moat which functioned both as defence as well as sewage disposal. According to Megasthenes, Pataliputra of the period of Chandragupta, was "surrounded by a wooden wall pierced by 64 gates and 570 towers— (and) rivaled the splendors of contemporaneous Persian sites such as Susa and Ecbatana".

Chandragupta's son Bindusara deepened the empire towards central and southern India. Patna under the rule of Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, emerged as an effective capital of the Indian subcontinent.

Emperor Ashoka transformed the wooden capital into a stone construction around 273 BC. Chinese scholar Fa Hein, who visited India sometime around A.D. 399-414, has given vivid description of the stone structures in his travelogue.

According to Pliny the Elder in his "Natural History":

"But the Prasii surpass in power and glory every other people, not only in this quarter, but one may say in all India, their capital Palibothra, a very large and wealthy city, after which some call the people itself the Palibothri,--nay even the whole tract along the Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000 foot-soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 elephants: whence may be formed some conjecture as to the vastness of his resources." Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. 21. 8-23. 11.

Learning and scholarship received great state patronage. Patliputra produced several eminent world class scholars.

Scholars:

Aryabhata, the famous astronomer and mathematician who gave the approximation of Pi correct to four decimal places.

Ashvaghosha, poet and influential Buddhist writer.

Chanakya, or Kautilya, the master of statecraft, described by Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru as Indian Machiavelli—he was the guru of Chandragupta Maurya and author of the ancient text on statecraft, Arthashashtra.

Pāṇini, the ancient Hindu grammarian who formulated the 3959 rules of Sanskrit morphology. The Backus-Naur Form syntax used to describe modern programming languages have significant similarities to Pāṇini's grammar rules.

Vatsyayana, the author of Kama Sutra.

It is believed that Pataliputra was the largest city in the world between 300 and 195 BC, taking that position from Alexandria, Egypt and being succeeded by the Chinese capital Chang'an (modern Xi'an).

The gupta

===Before the Guptas===

When the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated in 184 BC, India once again became a collection of unfederated kingdoms. During this period, the most powerful kingdoms were not in the north, but in the Deccan to the south, particularly in the west. The north, however, remained culturally the most active, where Buddhism was spreading and where Hinduism was being gradually remade by the Upanishadic movements, which are discussed in more detail in the section on religious history. The dream, however, of a universal empire had not disappeared. It would be realized by a northern kingdom and would usher in one of the most creative periods in Indian history.

===The Gupta Dynasty (320-550)===

When the last of the Mauryan kings was assassinated in 184 BC, India once again became a collection of unfederated kingdoms. During this period, the most powerful kingdoms were not in the north, but in the Deccan to the south, particularly in the west. The north, however, remained culturally the most active, where Buddhism was spreading and where Hinduism was being gradually remade by the Upanishadic movements, which are discussed in more detail in the section on religious history. The dream, however, of a universal empire had not disappeared. It would be realized by a northern kingdom and would usher in one of the most creative periods in Indian 

history.

== The Sultanate ==

With the disintegration of the Gupta empire,  and continuous invasions of the Indian subcontinent by foreign armies, Patna passed through uncertain time like most of north India.

During the 12th century, [[Muhammad of Ghori]]'s advancing forces captured [[Ghazni]], [[Multan]], [[Sindh]], [[Lahore]], and [[Delhi]], and one of his generals [[Qutb-ud-din Aybak]] proclaimed himself [[Sultan of Delhi]] and established the first dynasty of the [[Delhi Sultanate]].  By the mid-12th century,  [[Muhammad Khilji|Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiar Khilji]], one of the generals of [[Qutb-ud-din Aybak]], conquered [[Bihar]] and [[Bengal]],  and Patna became a part of the [[Delhi Sultanate]]. He is said to have destroyed many ancient seats of learning, the most prominent being the [[Nalanda]] University near [[Rajgir|Rajgrih]], about 120 km from Patna. Patna, which had already lost its stature as the political centre of India, lost its prestige as the educational and cultural center of India as well.

Foreign invaders often used abandoned viharas as military cantonments. They setup their headquarter in [[Nalanda]] region and called it '''Bihar''', which is derived from the term '''Vihar'''. The region roughly encompassing the present state of [[Bihar]] was dotted with Buddhist vihara, which were the abodes of Buddhist monks in the ancient and medieval period. The town still exists and is called Bihar or [[Bihar Sharif]] ([[Nalanda District]]). Later on the headquarter was shifted from Bihar to Patana (current [[Patna]]) by [[Sher Shah Suri]] and the whole [[Magadha]] region was called Bihar.

The Mughals

The Mughal period was a period of unremarkable provincial administration from Delhi. The most remarkable period of these times was under Sher Shah, or Sher Shah Suri. Sher Shah Suri hailed from Sasaram, about 160 km south-west of Patna and revived Patna in the middle of the 16th century. On his return from one of the expeditions, while standing by the Ganga, he visualised a fort and a town. Sher Shah's fort in Patna does not survive, but the mosque built by Sher Shah in 1545 survives. It is built in Afghan architectural style. There are numerous tombs inside.

The earliest mosque in Patna is dated 1489 and is built by Alauddin Hussani Shah, one of the Bengal rulers. Local people call it the Begu Hajjam's mosque in honour of a barber who got it repaired in 1646.

Mughal emperor Akbar came to Patna in 1574 to crush the Afghan Chief Daud Khan. Akbar's Secretary of State and author of Ain-i-Akbari refers to Patna as a flourishing centre for paper, stone and glass industries. He also refers to the high quality of numerous strains of rice grown in Patna that is famous as Patna rice in Europe.

Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb acceded to the request of his favourite grandson Prince Muhamad Azim to rename Patna as Azimabad, in 1704 while Azim was in Patna as the subedar. However, other than the name, very little changed during this period.

== The Nawabs ==

With the decline of Mughal empire, Patna moved into the hands of the [[Nawabs of Bengal]], who levied a heavy tax on the populace but allowed it to flourish as a commercial centre. During 17th century, Patna became a centre of international trade.

The British started with a factory in Patna in 1620 for the purchase and storage of calico and silk. Soon it became a trading centre for saltpetre, urging other Europeans—French, Danes, Dutch and Portuguese—to compete in the lucrative business. Various European factories and [[godown]]s started mushrooming in Patna and it acquired a trading fame that attracted far off merchants. [[Peter Mundy]], writing in 1632, calls this place, "the greatest mart of the eastern region".