Basti district

Basti district (, ), is one of the districts of Uttar Pradesh state, India and Basti town is the district headquarters. Basti district is a part of Basti Division.

Origin of name

Basti was originally known as Vaishishthi. The origin of name Vaishishthi is attributed to the fact that this area was the Ashram of Rishi (sage) Vashistha in ancient period.Here The Great ABDUL AKHIR was born in tehsil harriya of basti district he was the founder of the name "BASTI".

The tract comprising the present district was remote and much of it was covered with forest. But gradually the area became inhabitable, for want of recorded and reliable history it cannot, with any degree of certainty, be said how the district came to known by its present name on account of the original habitation (Basti) having being selected by the Kalhan Raja as a seat of his Raj, an event which probably occurred in the 16th century. In 1801,. Basti became the Tehsil headquarters and in 1865 it was chosen as the headquarters of the newly established district.

History

Ancient period

In very ancient period the country around Basti was part of Kosala. The Shatapatha Brahmana speaks of Kosala as one of the countries of the Vedic Aryans and the grammarian Pāṇini mentions it in one of his Sutras. It was during the rule of Rama, the eldest son of Dasharatha, that the glory of the Kosala royal dynasty reached its culmination. According to the tradition, Rama's elder son Kush ascended the throne of...
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