Indraprastha: Difference between revisions

==History==

Indraprastha is referenced in the ''Mahabharata'', a [[Sanskrit]] Indian text compiled over a period approximately between 400 BCE and 400 CE. It was one of the five places demanded for the sake of peace and to avert a disastrous war, Krishna proposed that if Hastinapur agreed to give the Pandavas only five villages, namely, Indraprastha, Swarnprastha ([[Sonipat]]), Panprastha ([[Panipat]]), Vyaghrprastha ([[Baghpat]]) and Tilprastha ([[Tilpat]])<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-12-05|title=Geeta Jayanti 2019: पांडवों ने कौरवों से मांगे थे ये पांच गांव जानिए इनके बारे में|url=https://www.naidunia.com/spiritual/vrat-tyohar-geeta-jayanti-2019-had-asked-these-five-villages-from-kauravas-know-about-these-4030796|access-date=2020-09-02|website=Nai Dunia|language=hi}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=इन पांच गांवों के कारण हुआ था पांडव और कौरवों में महाभारत का युद्ध {{!}} mahabharata war|url=https://hindi.webdunia.com/mahabharat/mahabharata-war-118070900009_1.html|access-date=2020-09-02|website=hindi.webdunia.com}}</ref> then they would be satisfied and would make no more demands. Duryodhana vehemently refused, commenting that he would not part with land even as much as the point of a needle. Thus, the stage was set for the great war for which the epic of Mahabharata is known most of all. The Mahabharata records Indraprastha as being home to the Pandavas, whose wars with the [[Kauravas]] it describes.

During the Mauryan period, Indraprastha was known as Indapatta in Buddhist literature. The location of Indraprastha is uncertain but [[Purana Qila]] in present day New Delhi is frequently cited.{{efn|For instance, Indologist [[J. A. B. van Buitenen]], who translated the Mahabharata, wrote in 1973 that "there can be no reasonable doubt about the locations of [[Hastinapura]], of Indraprastha (Delhi's Purana Qila [...]), and of [[Mathura]]}}<ref name="BuitenenBuitenen1973">{{cite book|author1=J. A. B. van Buitenen|author2=Johannes Adrianus Bernardus Buitenen|author3=James L. Fitzgerald|title=The Mahabharata, Volume 1: Book 1: The Book of the Beginning|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i8oe5fY5_3UC&pg=PA10|year=1973|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-84663-7|page=12}}</ref> and has been noted as such in texts as old as the 14th-century CE.<ref name="Singh2006intro">{{cite book |title=Delhi: Ancient History |editor-first=Upinder |editor-last=Singh |publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2006 |isbn=9788187358299 |pages=xvii-xxi, 53–56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KkpdLnZpm78C}}</ref> The modern form of the name, Inderpat, continued to be applied to the Purana Qila area into the early 20th century;<ref name="Ghosh1990">{{cite book|author=Amalananda Ghosh|title=An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology, Volume 2|year=1990|publisher=Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers|isbn=978-81-215-0089-0|pages=353–354}}</ref> in a study of ancient Indian place-names, [[Michael Witzel]] considers this to be one of many places from the Sanskrit Epics whose names have been retained into modern times, such as [[Kosambi|Kaushambi]]/Kosam.<ref>{{cite book |last=Witzel |first=Michael |editor1-last=Bronhorst |editor1-first=Johannes |editor2-last=Deshpande |editor2-first=Madhav |title=Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=1999 |pages=337–404 (p.25 of PDF) |chapter=Aryan and non-Aryan Names in Vedic India. Data for the linguistic situation, c. 1900-500 B.C. |url=http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/Lingsit.pdf |isbn=978-1-888789-04-1}}</ref>