Since its origin in 600 BC, the city of

Patna Patna ( ), historically known as Pataliputra, is the capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Patna had a population of 2.35 million, making it the 19th largest city in India. ...

( hi, पटना) has gone through many name changes. The article lists various name of Patna used throughout its history. The article could also be taken as ''Toponymy of Patna''.

Pataligram

One legend ascribes the origin of city 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''. ''Gram'' 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 ...

word for a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

Patliputra

The name '' Patliputra'' (Devanagari: पाटलिपुत्र ) is composed (

sandhi Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...

) of two words, ''Patali'' and ''Putraka'' (king). The name Patliputra was given by a king of ancient Indian state of

Magadh Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was ruled ...

Ajatashatru Ajatasattu (Pāli ) or Ajatashatru (Sanskrit ) in Buddhist tradition, or Kunika () and Kuniya () in the Jain histories, (c. 492 to 460 BCE or early 5th century BCE) was one of the most important kings of the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha in East ...

, who created a

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

in Pataligrama near the River

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

in 490 BC and later king Ajatashatru shifted his capital to Patliputra. The name Patliputra may also have been derived from Patli, a tree variety that is found in the city. Indeed, according to the ''

Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta The ''Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta'' is Sutta 16 in the ''Digha Nikaya'', a scripture belonging to the Sutta Pitaka of Theravada Buddhism. It concerns the end of Gautama Buddha's life - his parinibbana - and is the longest sutta of the Pāli Ca ...

'' ( Sutta 16 of the ''

Dīgha Nikāya The Digha Nikaya (dīghanikāya; "Collection of Long Discourses") is a Buddhist scriptures collection, the first of the five Nikāyas, or collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the "three baskets" that compose the Pali Tipitaka of ...

''), Pāṭaliputta was the place "where the seedpods of the Pāṭali plant break open".

Pa-lin-fou

The Chinese called the place as Pa-lin-fou. This name appears in books of Chinese travellers,

Fa Hien Faxian (法顯 ; 337 CE – c. 422 CE), also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, ...

& Hsüan-tsang who visited Patliputra.

Palibothra

This name was mentioned by

Megasthenes Megasthenes ( ; grc, Μεγασθένης, c. 350 BCE– c. 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book '' Indica'', which is now lost, but ha ...

(350 BCE-290 BCE), the Greek historian, (calling it 'Palibothra'(Devanagari: पलिबोथरा) or 'Palimbotra' (Devanagari: पलिम्बोत्र), in his writings during the 4th century.Of the city Pataliputra
Indika, Book II, Frag. XXV, Strab. XV. i. 35-36,--p. 702. Frag XXVI.Arr. Ind. 10. ''Of Pataliputra''..." the greatest city in India is that which is called Palimbothra, in the dominions of the Prasians, where the streams of the Erannoboas and the Ganges unite,--the Ganges being the greatest of all rivers, and the Erannoboas being perhaps the third largest of Indian rivers, though greater than the greatest rivers elsewhere; but it is smaller than the Ganges where it falls into it. Megasthenes informs us that this city stretched in the inhabited quarters to an extreme length on each side of eighty stadia, and that its breadth was fifteen stadia, and that a ditch encompassed it all round, which was six hundred feet in breadth and thirty cubits in depth, and that the wall was crowned with 570 towers and had four-and-sixty gates...."

Azimabad

Prince

Azim-us-Shan Azim-ush-Shan ( fa, ; 15 December 1664 – 18 March 1712) was the second son of Mughal emperor Shah Alam I, by his second wife, Amrita Bai, Princess of Kishangarh. He was the grandson of Emperor Aurangzeb, during whose reign, he was the '' s ...

, the grandson of Aurangzeb came as the

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

of Patliputra in 1703. Earlier than that

Sher Shah Suri Sher Shah Suri ( ps, شیرشاه سوری) (1472, or 1486 – 22 May 1545), born Farīd Khān ( ps, فرید خان) , was the founder of the Sur Empire in India, with its capital in Sasaram in modern-day Bihar. He standardized the silver coin ...

had moved his capital from

Bihar Sharif Bihar Sharif is the headquarters of Nalanda district and the fifth-largest sub-metropolitan area in the eastern Indian state of Bihar. Its name is a combination of two words: ''Bihar'', derived from '' vihara'' (meaning monastery), also the nam ...

to Patliputra. It was prince Azim-us-Shan who gave it the name ''

Azimabad Azimabad ( hi, अज़ीमाबाद, ur, ) was the name of modern-day Patna during the eighteenth century, prior to the British Raj. Today, Patna is the capital of Bihar, a state in North India. In ancient times, Patna was known as Pata ...

''.

Pataligram

Patliputra

Pa-lin-fou

Palibothra

Azimabad

See also

References

Further reading