Why Delhi and not Patna?

[Vinization]

My knowledge on this subject is extremely limited, so please forgive me if I say something outrageous.

I've been looking up a bit of Indian history and one of the things that caught my attention is that the first major empires that ruled most of the Indian Subcontinent (Mauryas, Shungas, Guptas, etc) had their capitals on Patna, or, as it was called back then, Pataliputra.

However, as time went on, the next giant empires of the north were centered in areas very far away from Bihar, such as Lahore and Delhi. Examples of this are the Ghurid dynasty, the Delhi Sultanate (obviously), the Mughal Empire, and modern day India.

Could we have from, say, 1700 onwards, a native empire that rules most of the subcontinent from Patna, rather than Delhi? Or did Bihar have some sort of issue that prevented it from becoming a capital region (I know Xi'an in China lost its central status after the region around it suffered from desertification, or something like that)?

Feedback is much appreciated.

 

[Captain Jack]

Delhi, and other cities in it's general region lie at the northern tip of the Gangetic plain, roughly where it approaches the plain of the Indus river. Thus, that region is well suited for the capital of a state which is either dominant in, or seeking to dominate, northern India and the Gangetic plain but which is also involved in or rules over parts of Central Asia and the Indus valley. It is roughly the juncture between those regions.

However, empires like the Mauryas and Guptas ruled over those same regions and had their capital in Patna and were centered in Bihar. To explain that, I think we can turn to the devastation of Bihar in the Islamic conquests which destroyed the region's prosperity and reduced it's importance to the subsequent states seeking to rule northern India. While I wasn't able to find anything specifically discussing the impact of the invasions on Bihar's political importance, there is a fair amount on the important role of the invasions in the decline of Buddhism and the catastrophic effect it had on the Buddhist centers in Bihar. So it doesn't seem like I'm going too far out on a limb to infer a similar effect on Bihar's political importance. But your mileage may vary on that.

It's also worth noting that the Sur Empire ruled most of northern India and was centered in Bihar with it's capital at Sasaram, as that was the home and initial erritory of the state's founder. However, it did last for less than two decades, so perhaps it should be weighted less heavily than the longer lasting states.

In any case, my conclusion would be that Bihar fell from prominence due in part to the damage done to the region by the Islamic conquests, and that the different interests and priorities of the later Indian states encouraged them to move and keep their center of gravity in the north.

 

[LostInNewDelhi]

Bihar's irrelevance for Big Empires precedes the Islamic conquest, though-- the post-Gupta political order featured the rise of dynasties in Bengal (Pala) and the Deccan (Chalukya) instead; the next big northern-plain polity, the Vardhana dynasty of Harsha, had its centers in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Though both the Vardhans and Bengali Palas governed Bihar at various times, both remained fairly close to their own heartlands. I don't think this is due to any especially bad quality of Bihar's (Nalanda and other institutions were still based there, etc.) but just because it wasn't especially competitive with the other regions.

 

[Kaushlendra pratap singh]

Islamic power want to protect the northwestern border from where they come nothing else but they directly control Bihar and Bengal as in as a united crown province.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

I think it’s less about the start of the Islamic era in India and more about the increasing role that steppe cavalry had in the post Gupta period and I may be wrong but I think that was because of some innovations in steppe tactics of something that had a global effect.
As such, any empire in Bihar would find it very hard to defend the Hindu Kush, which is the best place to stop the steppe archers before they get into the plains of Hindustan and as India’s always had a lack of good horses an empire in Delhi is better situated to tap into the horse trade and secure good cavalry for itself.