Patna: a fading city once loved by age-old rulers and travelers:

Subject : History

History of Patna:

The original name of Patna was Pataliputra or Patalipattan.
The name Patna has undergone many changes at its earliest stages like Pataligram, Kusumpur, Patliputra, Azimabad, ultimately terminating to the present one.
It has been said that Pataliputra was founded by Ajatashatru
Chandragupta Maurya made it his capital in the 4th century B.C.
There existed a village namedPattan or Patthan, which later turned into Patna.
The ancient village was named ‘Patali’ and the word ‘Pattan’ was added to it.
Greek history mentions ‘Palibothra’ which perhaps is Pataliputra
Aurangzeb who briefly named itAzimabadafter his grandson Mohammed Azim
Prince Azim-us-Shan, the grandson of Aurangzeb came as the Governor of Patna in 1703
For people following the Sikh religion, Patna is a sacred city as the tenth Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh, was born

Patna a favourite place of travellers

This city was the fountainhead of the spring of knowledge and wisdom in ancient times
Greek ambassador Megasthenes stayed in Patliputra during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya.
The famous traveler Fa-Hien in the 3rd century and Hiuen-Tsang in the 7th century inspected the city.
FaHien wrote about it in A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms wherein he called Patna, ‘the city of flowers’,
Many noted scholars like Kautilya stayed here and works like ‘Arthashastra’ were written from this place.
British traveler Ralph Fitch came to Patna in 1586 and described it as “a very long and great town with a flourishing trade in cotton, sugar and opium”.
Scottish physician Francis Buchanan described it in unflattering expression, “difficult to imagine a more disgusting place”.
M. Forster who made Bankipore a residential area within Patna the model for Chandrapore, the fictional town in A Passage of India
Patna also got a fleeting reference in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novelThe Namesake.