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PAT
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PAT
Patala-1 Tatta in Sindh, mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea and Arrian's
Indika (JRAS., Vol. I (1834), p. 210; Mh., Udyoga, ch. 97). Cunningham identifies it with Hyderabad in Sindh (Anc. Geo., p. 279). It is said to have been governed by the Naga kings, who, according to Ragozin, were Dravidians (Ragozin's Vedic India, p. 308), the serpent (Naga) being the Dravidian symbol of the Earth. Arrian calls the delta of the Indus, PAtala. According to Mr. Schoff, its modern name is Minnagar, Min being the Sanskrit name of the Soythians (Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, p. 166); the Usbegs belong to the Min tribe of the Turks (Vambery's Travels in Central Asia). It is said that Egyptian vessels sailed to “Pattala, & sea-port of India” (David Macpherson's Annals of Commerce. I, p. 139). Perhaps it is the Patalagrama of the Ava. Kalp. (ch. 57) where a stûpa was built. Near Tatta is the Salilaraja Tirtha or the Varuņi Tirtha, Salilaraja being a name for Varuņa (Mbh., Udyoga, ch. 97). 2. See Rasätala. Patalapura-The name was originally applied to Asma of the Ramayana (Uttara, ch. 23),
Oxians of the Greeks, modern Aksu in Sogdiana situated on the northern side of the river Oxus, a little to the north-east of Balkh. Afterwards Balkh was called by the name of Patalapura when the seat of Government was removed to it from Asma (see my Rasd.
tala or the Underworld). Påtalâvati--A branch of the Chambal, mentioned by Bhavabhuti in his Malati- Madhava,
(Act IX). It is perhaps the Polaitah of Tod (Rajasthan, Vol. I, p. 4). Påtallputra-Patna, built in 480 B.C. by Sunidha and Vaseakara, the two ministers of
Ajátasatru, king of Magadha and contemporary of Buddha, for the purpose of repelling the attacks of the Vajjis or Vrijjis of Vaisali (Mahavagga, Pt. VI, ch. 28). The old capital of Magadha was Giri vrajapura or Rajgir, but it was subsequently removed to Pataliputra by Uday&sva, who was the grandson of AjAtasatru acoording to the Vishnu P. (IV, ch. 24), but according to the Samañfiaphala-sutta, he was the son of Ajatasatru, but it has been prov. od that he was the son of Darkaka and grandson of Ajatasatru (JASB., 1913, p. 259). A very small portion of the modern town of Patna is on the site of the ancient Pataliputra, the greater portion of which was diluviated by the rivers Ganges and the Sone in 750 A.D. The name of Pataliputra, however, existed even at the time of Alberuni in the tenth or at the commencement of the eleventh century (Alberuni's India, Vol. I, p. 200). It was the birth-place of Arya Bhatta, the celebrated Hindu astronomer, who was born in 476 A.D. Several Hindu sages, as Katyayana (or Vararuohi, the author of the Varttika and minister of the last Nanda called Mahahanda, Yogananda or Dhanananda) and Chanakya flourished in this place. It contains the temple of Patalebvari or Patala Devi, one of the Pithas mentioned in the Brihad-nild Tantra. A graphio description of the town has been given by Megasthenes, who was sent as an ambassador by Seleucus Nicator to the court of Chandragupta, king of Magadha, who reigned from 321 to 297 B.C. He describes the town as being situated near the confluence of the rivers Ganges and Erannobos (Hiragyaváhu or the Sone), and says that it was eighty stadia (nearly 10 miles) in length and fifteen stadia (nearly 2 miles) in breadth, and it was surrounded by a ditch thirty cubits deep and six hundred oubits broad which received the sewage of the town, and that the walls wero adorned with 570 towers and 64 gates. According to this account, the oir. cumference of the city would be 190 stadia or 237 miles. When Hiuen Tsiang 'visited it in 637 A.D., the kingdom of Magadha was under the subjection of the kings of Kanouj. The old city had been deserted for a long time and was in ruins, and a new city had sprung up close to it. Dr. Waddell, however, supposes that the site of the ancient Pataliputra,
