Suktimati (Shuktimati, Sukti) was the capital city of the

Yaduvanshi Yadu () is the founder of the Yadu dynasty in Hinduism. He is described to be the eldest son of King Yayati, and his queen, Devayani. Legend According to a narrative found in the Mahabharata, and the Vishnu Purana, Yadu refused to exchange h ...

Chedi Kingdom Chedi ( sa, चेदी) was a kingdom which fell roughly in the Bundelkhand division of Madhya Pradesh regions to the south of river Yamuna along the river Ken. Its capital city was called Suktimati in Sanskrit. According to the Mahabhara ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. It lay on the banks of the river Shuktimati flowing through Chedi. It was built by a Chedi king known as

Uparichara vasu Uparichara Vasu () is a king featured in Hindu literature, a member of the Chandravamsha (Lunar dynasty). The son of Kruti, he rules over the kingdom of Chedi. He is described to be a friend of Indra and a great devotee of Vishnu in the Puran ...

. In the

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...

, it has been quoted that this river gave birth to twins (a boy and a girl) through its association with a mountain called Kolahala. The river then gives the twins to king

Uparichara Vasu Uparichara Vasu () is a king featured in Hindu literature, a member of the Chandravamsha (Lunar dynasty). The son of Kruti, he rules over the kingdom of Chedi. He is described to be a friend of Indra and a great devotee of Vishnu in the Puran ...

. King Vasu makes the boy the commander of his armies and marries the girl, Girika. Shuktimati is the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

form of the name; it is referred to as Sotthivati-nagara in the

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or ''Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravāda'' Buddhism ...

-language Buddhist texts. The location of Suktimati has not been established with certainty. Historian

Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri ( bn, হেম চন্দ্র রায়চৌধুরী) (8 April 1892 – 4 May 1957Raychaudhuri, Hemchandra (1972). ''Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of ...

and

F. E. Pargiter Frederick Eden Pargiter (1852–18 February 1927) was a British civil servant and Orientalist. Born in 1852, Pargiter was the second son of Rev. Robert Pargiter. He studied at Taunton Grammar School and Exeter College, Oxford where he passed in ...

believed that it was in the vicinity of

Banda, Uttar Pradesh Banda is a city and a municipal board in Banda district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Banda is divided between north, east, west and south Banda. Banda lies south of the Yamuna river in the Bundelkhand region. It is the administrative ...

. Archaeologist

Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti (born 27 April 1941) is an Indian archaeologist, Professor Emeritus of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University, and a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University. He ...

has proposed that Suktimati can be identified as the ruins of a large early historical city, at a place with the modern-day name

Rewa, Madhya Pradesh Rewa is a city in north-eastern part of Madhya Pradesh state in India. It is the administrative center of Rewa District and Rewa Division. The city lies about northeast of the state capital Bhopal and north of the city of Jabalpur. The maxim ...

References

{{Hindu-myth-stub Ancient Indian cities Mahabharata