Description : Hastinapur is a city in the Meerut district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Hastinapur, described in Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata and the Puranas as the capital of the Kuru Kingdom, is also mentioned in ancient Jain texts. Hastinapur is located on the right bank of the Ganges river. In the Mahabharata, Hastinapur is portrayed as the capital of the Kuru Kingdom of the Kauravas. Many incidents in the Mahabharata were set in the city of Hastinapur. According to the Mahabharata, the 100 Kaurava brothers were born in this city to their mother, Queen Gandhari, the wife of King Dhritarashtra. On the bank of the Budhi Ganga, two places near Hastinapur (Draupadi Ghat and Karna Ghat) reference Mahabharata personages. The first reference to Hastinapur in the Puranas presents the city as the capital of Emperor Bharata's kingdom. King Samprati (also referred to as Samrat Samprati), grandson of the emperor Asoka the Great of the Mauryan Empire, built many temples here during his reign. Excavations at Hastinapur were carried out in the early 1950s by B.B. Lal, Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. Although the main aim of this excavation, according to Lal himself, was to determine the stratigraphic position of Painted Grey Ware concerning other known ceramic industries of the early historical period, Lal found correlations between the text of the Mahabharata and the material remains that he unearthed at Hastinapur. This led him to historicize some of the traditions mentioned in the Mahabharata as well as link the appearance of the Painted Grey Ware with Aryans in the upper Ganges basin areas. Hastinapur is listed in the Ain-i-Akbari as a pargana under Delhi sarkar, producing a revenue of 4,466,904 dams for the imperial treasury and supplying a force of 300 infantry and 10 cavalry. The author, Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, describes it "an ancient Hindu settlement" lying on the Ganges. During British India, Hastinapur was ruled by Raja Nain Singh Nagar, who built many Hindu temples in and around Hastinapura.
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