Triveni Sangam city that hosts the world's largest fair
Prayagraj—still colloquially Allahabad—is an Uttar Pradesh metropolis at the Triveni Sangam where Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Sarasvati meet. Central in Hindu scripture, it ranks second in state tourist arrivals after Varanasi across 365 km2. Akbar founded a great city here per Akbarnama; Kumbh Mela draws vast peaceful crowds.
Prayaga in Sanskrit means place of sacrifice, recalling the belief that Brahma performed the first sacrificial rite here, and the word came to mean any confluence. Prayagraj, king of the five sacred confluences, honours this one as the finest, where tradition adds the invisible Sarasvati to the Ganges and Yamuna. A supplement to the Rigveda from around 1200 to 1000 BCE first mentions the pilgrimage, and the Buddha, in a Pali text, countered that bathing there could not wash away evil deeds; the Mahabharata recommends a bath during the month of Magha as penance. In the late Vedic period Kuru rulers made it their capital as Kosambi.
Jains know the site as Purimtal, where their first Tirthankara, Rishabhanatha, reached omniscience beneath the Akshayavata tree, and Mahavira is said to have meditated nearby. Five Jain temples survive, one holding an eleventh-century marble image of Rishabhanatha. The Allahabad Pillar bears an edict of Ashoka from the third century BCE along with inscriptions of Samudragupta and of Birbal. Excavations show settlement near the confluence from about 800 BCE, though Dilip Chakrabarti suggests the ancient city stood at Jhusi across the water.
Akbar visited in 1575 and ordered a fort, finished by 1584 and named Ilahabas, abode of God; coins from his reign already bear Ilahabad, which later prevailed. Under Jahangir it was a provincial capital. The British made it seat of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1833, capital of the North-Western Provinces in 1858, when it was briefly India's capital for a day, and United Provinces capital between 1902 and 1920, and it was prominent in the independence struggle. Attempts to rename it failed in 1992 and 2001 before the state government changed the name to Prayagraj in October 2018.
The 2011 census counted about 1.53 million residents across 365 square kilometres. The city houses the Allahabad High Court and draws more visitors than anywhere in the state except Varanasi, above all for the Kumbh Mela.
Source: Prayagraj
