Shuktimati () is the capital city of the

Chedi kingdom Chedi () was a realm, kingdom which fell roughly in the Bundelkhand division of Madhya Pradesh regions to the south of river Yamuna along the river Ken River, Ken. Its capital city was called Suktimati in Sanskrit. According to the Mahabharat ...

featured in Hindu literature. It lies on the banks of the eponymous river Shuktimati, which flows through the region. It is referred to as Sotthivati-nagara in the

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

-language Buddhist texts.

Legend

Shuktimati is described to have been built by a Chedi king of the

Chandravamsha The Lunar dynasty (IAST: Candravaṃśa) is a legendary principal house of the Kshatriyas varna, or warrior–ruling varna (Social Class) mentioned in the ancient Indian texts. This legendary dynasty was said to be descended from moon-related ...

(Lunar dynasty) known as

Uparichara Vasu Uparichara Vasu ( IAST: ''UparicaraVasu'' pəɾɪt͡ʃəɾəʋəs̪u is a king featured in Hindu literature, a member of the Chandravamsha (Lunar dynasty). The son of Kṛti, he rules over the kingdom of Chedi. He is described to be a friend ...

. The

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...

states that the river Shuktimati gives birth to twins (a boy and a girl) after being forced to make love with a mountain called Kolahala. After being freed by the king with a kick, the river gives the twins to him. Uparichara Vasu makes the boy the commander of his armies and marries the girl, Girika.

Identification

The location of Suktimati has not been established with certainty. Historian Hem Chandra Raychaudhuri and F. E. Pargiter believed that it was in the vicinity of Banda, Uttar Pradesh. Archaeologist

Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti (born 27 April 1941) is an Indian archaeologist, Professor Emeritus of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University, and a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University. He ...

has proposed that Suktimati can be identified as the ruins of a large early historical city, at a place with the modern-day name

Rewa, Madhya Pradesh Rewa is a city in the north-eastern part of Madhya Pradesh state in India. It is the administrative center of Rewa District and Rewa Division. The city lies about northeast of the state capital Bhopal and north of the city of Jabalpur. The ma ...

References

{{Hindu-myth-stub Mahabharata Places in Hindu mythology Ancient Indian cities