History of Prayagraj
Archaeological sites in India, such as Kosambi and Jhusi near Prayagraj in present-day Uttar Pradesh show iron implements in the period 1800–1200 BC.
The Allahabad Museum further highlights the region's Jain heritage, displaying ancient idols and artefacts excavated from nearby areas.
Ongoing efforts to preserve and document Purimtal’s Jain heritage ensure its enduring relevance to the community and the broader historical narrative.
Goyal suggests that the Allahabad Pillar Inscription strongly indicates that the early Gupta center of power was in the modern eastern Uttar Pradesh, probably around Prayaga.
[10] The Vishnu Purana provides an intriguing reference: "Anu-Ganga Prayāgam Māgadha Guptās-cha bhokshyanti," which has been translated by Majumdar as "The territory along the Ganges (up to) Prayaga will be enjoyed by the people of Magadha and the Guptas."
[15] In the same inscription, Sri Gupta and Ghatotkacha are given the title of Mahārāja while Chandragupta I and Samudragupta are referred to as Mahārājādhirāja, reflecting the increasing power and imperial glory of the dynasty.
He adds that after Mahmud of Ghazni captured Asní near Fatehpur, he would not have crossed into Bundelkhand without visiting Allahabad, had there been a city there worth plundering.
`Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni and Nizamuddin Ahmad mention that Akbar laid the foundations of an Imperial City at Prayag which he called Ilahabas.
[21] It is said that Akbar was so impressed by its strategic site after visiting it in 1575 that he ordered that a fort be constructed and renamed it Illahabas or Abode of God by 1584, later changed to Allahabad under Shah Jahan.
[22] James Forbes' account of early 1800s claims that it was renamed Allahabad or abode of God by Jahangir after he failed to destroy the Akshayavat tree.
Shaligram Shrivastav claimed in Prayag Pradip that the name was deliberately given by Akbar to be construed as both Hindu ("ilaha") and Muslim ("Allah").
[23] In 1580, Akbar reorganized his empire into 12 divisions, per Ain-i-Akbari, "to each of which he gave the name Subah and distinguished them by the appellation of the tract of country or its capital city."
[24] Akbar deputed his son Salim (the future emperor Jahangir) to carry on the war against Mewar while leaving to campaign in Deccan.
[31] During the Mughal war of succession, the commandant of the fort of Allahabad who had joined Shah Shuja made an agreement with Aurangzeb's officers and surrendered it to Khan Dauran on 12 January 1659.
[21] The combined forces of Bengal's Nawab Mir Qasim, Shuja and Shah Alam were defeated by the English at Buxar in October 1764 and at Kora in May 1765.
Alam who was abandoned by Shuja after the defeats, surrendered to the English and was lodged at the fort, as they captured Allahabad, Benares and Chunar in his name.
After reaching Delhi in January 1772 and realising the Maratha intent of territorial encroachment, however, Shah Alam ordered his general Najaf Khan to drive them out.
[35] In August and September 1773, Warren Hastings met Shuja and concluded a treaty, under which Kora and Allahabad were ceded to the Nawab for a payment of 50 lakh rupees.
[36] Saadat Ali Khan II after being made the Nawab by John Shore, entered into a treaty with the Company and gave the fort to the British in 1798.
[38] In 1765, the combined forces of the Nawab of Awadh and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II lost the Battle of Buxar to the British.
[39] Acquired in 1801, Allahabad asides from its importance as a pilgrimage center, it was a stepping stone to the agrarian track upcountry and the Grand Trunk Road.
They provided physical paper records and histories of revenue returns which helped in negotiations with the cultivators, tehsildars, zamindars and those who owned rent-free lands.
After the mutiny, the British truncated the Delhi region of the state, merging it with Punjab, and transferred the capital of the North-Western Provinces to Allahabad, where it remained for the next twenty years.
The fourth and eighth session of the Indian National Congress was held in the city in 1888 and 1892 respectively on the extensive grounds of Darbhanga Castle, Allahabad.
In the years of the struggle for Indian independence, thousands of satyagrahis (nonviolent resistors), led by Purshottam Das Tandon, Bishambhar Nath Pande and Narayan Dutt Tiwari, went to jail.
Forty-eight kilometres to the southwest, on the banks of the Yamuna River, are the ruins of Kaushambi, which was the capital of the Vatsa kingdom and a thriving center of Buddhism.
On the eastern side, across the river Ganges and connected to the city by the Shastri Bridge is Pratisthan Pur, capital of the Chandra dynasty.
Notable amongst them are Munshi Premchand, Mahadevi Varma, Sumitranandan Pant, Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala', Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, Upendra Nath 'Ashk' and Harivansh Rai Bachchan.
The famous English author and Nobel Laureate (1907) Rudyard Kipling spent time at Prayagraj working for The Pioneer as an assistant editor and overseas correspondent.
The most prominent Arabic and Persian scholars included Dr. Abdul Sattar Siddiqui and his colleague Muhammad Naeemur Rehman who was known for his well organized personal library of tens of thousands of books, which was open to all.
