Patna

It was the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri who revived Patna in the middle of the 16th century, building a fort and founding a new town on the bank of the Ganges, and under the Mughals it grew into the great market of the east: by 1620 it was called the largest town in Bengal and the most famous for trade. That year the English East India Company opened a factory here for calico and silk, and saltpetre, the main ingredient of gunpowder, soon went down the river in Dutch and English cargoes, drawing French, Danish and Portuguese rivals after them.

In 1666 Gobind Rai, the future Guru Gobind Singh, tenth guru of the Sikhs, was born in the city. As Mughal power ebbed, Patna passed to the Nawabs of Bengal, who taxed it heavily but let its trade flourish, and its wealth made it a prize in the struggle for Bengal. In 1763 the nawab Mir Qasim had the Company's prisoners here, 45 employees and some 200 sepoys, shot in their cells, and the next year the Company's victory at Buxar gave it the upper hand over Bengal and Bihar.