हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Bithoor (Brahmavarta)

Brahmavarta on the Ganga above Kanpur, honoured as the place of Brahma’s yajna and of Valmiki’s ashram, where the last Peshwa lived in exile and where Nana Saheb, Tatya Tope and the girl who became Rani Lakshmibai grew up together.

Built: Ancient tirtha on the Ganga; seat of the exiled Peshwa from 1818Where: Uttar Pradesh (Kanpur Nagar district)26.61° N, 80.27° E
  1. 1818
  2. 28 January 1851
  3. July–August 1857
Photo: Originally uploaded by Mukerjee (Transferred by Cloudbound) · Public domain

01Brahma’s ghat and Valmiki’s ashram

Local tradition holds that Bhagwan Brahma performed a yajna here before creating the world, and at the Brahmavarta Ghat pilgrims touch a peg said to mark the spot, the Brahma khunti. On a mound above the town is the place honoured as Valmiki’s ashram, where, by the regional tradition, Sita lived after she left Ayodhya and gave birth to Lava and Kusha. Another mound is named for Dhruva’s tapas. Bithoor’s ghats were rebuilt under the Peshwas, and the town has a long line of temples along the river.

02The Peshwa’s exile and 1857

Bajirao II surrendered to John Malcolm in June 1818 and was sent to Bithoor with a pension of eight lakh rupees a year. His household included Moropant Tambe, whose daughter Manikarnika, Manu, grew up here and rode and fenced with the Peshwa’s adopted son Dhondu Pant, Nana Saheb, and with Tatya Tope. When Bajirao died on 28 January 1851 the Company stopped the pension. In June 1857 Nana Saheb led the rising at Kanpur. After Havelock retook Kanpur in July the British burned Nana’s palace at Bithoor, and in August fought the rebels there again. The ruins of the palace and a memorial to Nana Saheb stand in the town today.

The life of this place

  1. 1818Bajirao II, the last Peshwa, is exiled to Bithoor.
  2. 28 January 1851Bajirao II dies at Bithoor; the Company refuses the pension to Nana Saheb.
  3. July–August 1857British troops burn Nana Saheb’s palace and fight the rebels at Bithoor.
Visiting

Bithoor is about 25 km north-west of Kanpur. Bathe at Brahmavarta Ghat early in the morning and walk up to the Valmiki ashram mound.

People

Nana Saheb PeshwaFreedom fighter
19 May 1824 – after 1859 (fate unknown)

Nana Saheb Peshwa

Adopted heir of the last Peshwa

Nearby

Kanpur (Cawnpore)Standing
Company rule and the war of 1857

Kanpur (Cawnpore)

The Ganga town where the Company kept a great cantonment and where, in June and July 1857, Nana Saheb’s forces besieged and destroyed the British garrison. It became one of the bitterest names of that war on both sides.

Bhitargaon Brick TempleRuined
The Gupta Age

Bhitargaon Brick Temple

The oldest surviving brick temple of the Hindus with a tall shikhara, built under the Guptas and covered with terracotta panels.

KakoriStanding
Renaissance and the struggle for Swaraj

Kakori

The town near Lucknow where, on 9 August 1925, revolutionaries of the Hindustan Republican Association stopped a train and took the government treasury it carried. Four of them, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Roshan Singh, were hanged for it in December 1927.

Kannauj (Kanyakubja)Ruined
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Kannauj (Kanyakubja)

For five hundred years whoever held Kannauj on the Ganga held the claim to north India. Harsha ruled from it, the Pratiharas, Palas and Rashtrakutas fought a century-long war over it, and its fall to Muhammad Ghuri in 1194 opened the Ganga plain.