Awadh

Awadh is the rich grain country on the Ghaghra, or Saryu, in the old land of Kosala. Rivers, monsoon fields and dense villages made it the granary of northern India, and its roads tied Delhi and the Doab to Bihar and the lower Ganges. The town of Faizabad, which became the province's first capital, lies on the river's southern bank a few miles west of Ayodhya.

From 1394 to 1478 Awadh belonged to the Sharqi Sultanate of Jaunpur. Around 1555 Humayun brought it under the Mughals, and Akbar made it one of his provinces. In 1722 the Persian adventurer Saadat Khan became its governor and began to turn the province into a hereditary state. He built a hunting lodge on the river in 1730, and under his successor Safdar Jang the new town took the name Faizabad. After his defeat at Buxar in 1764, Shuja-ud-Daula, the third ruler of the line, made Faizabad his residence, strengthened its defences and laid out a market square and gardens. When he died in 1775, his son Asaf-ud-Daula soon moved the court to Lucknow.