Hastinapura- Hindu LocationLocation · Landmark"City of Elephants"

The City of Elephants

Hastinapura takes its name from King Hastin of the Lunar dynasty. The city stood on the banks of the upper Ganga. The Mahabharata describes it as a vast, fortified capital with wide boulevards and a great assembly hall where the Kuru kings held court. In that hall, Bhishma administered the kingdom through the reigns of blind Dhritarashtra and absent Pandu. In that same hall, Shakuni played dice against Yudhishthira with loaded bones and stripped him of his wealth and his kingdom, then of his brothers. At last Yudhishthira wagered Draupadi. The outrage that followed sent the Pandavas into thirteen years of exile and set the course for Kurukshetra.

The Flood

After the war, Yudhishthira was crowned king of Hastinapura. He ruled justly for thirty-six years, then renounced the throne and walked toward the Himalayas with his brothers. The throne passed to Parikshit, Arjuna's grandson, and then to Janamejaya, who performed the great snake sacrifice in Hastinapura's halls. The Vishnu Purana records that the Ganga eventually flooded the city during the reign of King Nichaksu. He abandoned the ruined capital and moved the seat of the Kurus to Kaushambi.