The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c29.71

c29.71

Pātaliputra, however, although necessarily considerably neglected by warrior kings like Samudragupta and Vikramāditya, continued to be a magnificent and populous city throughout the reign of the latter, and apparently was not ruined until the time of the Hun invasion in the sixth century. When the Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Tsang, lived in the neighbourhood (640), he found the greater part of the ancient site covered by hundreds of ruins. 'The city', he tells us, 'had long been a wilderness', save for a small walled town near the Ganges, with about 1,000 inhabitants. Harsha, when he ruled Northern India as paramount sovereign (612–47), made no attempt to restore the old imperial capital, preferring to make Kanauj, situated between the Ganges and Jumna, the seat of his government. Dharmapāla, the second and, perhaps, the most powerful of the Pāla kings of Bengal and Bihar, evidently took some steps to renew the glory of Pātaliputra, because we know that in the thirty-second year of his reign (about A. D. 811) he held his court there. After that glimpse of the old city, we lose sight of it again until 1541, when it had sunk to the rank of 'a small town, dependent on Bihār, which was the seat of government'. Shēr Shah, being impressed by the strategical advantages of the position, then built a fort at the cost of half a million of rupees. 'Bihār from that date was deserted and fell to ruin, while Patna became one of the largest cities of the province.' The prosperity thus restored by the action of Shēr Shah has never been lost.