Patna

"The city of Pushpapuri or Pataliputra is the capital of the Magadha country. It is the touchstone by which all other cities are judged. It has revealed the splendid vastness of the sea by securing from it numerous precious jewels and other objects—which are spread over its several markets," wrote Dandin, a renowned poet and story teller, in the A.D. 6th century. To Fa-hien, the Chinese traveller, who visited Pataliputra a century earlier, it looked so magnificent that he thought it must have been built by supernatural beings.

Pataliputra had two older names, Pushpapur and Kusumpur both meaning the City of Flowers. Patali, also means the trumpet flower.