Sambhal

About Sambhal

Sambhal is a city located in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The city lies approximately 158 km (98 mi) east of the national capital New Delhi and 355 km (220 mi) north-west of the state capital Lucknow. It also falls within the Rohilkhand region in the Moradabad division of the state, being approximately 32 km (20 miles) from the city of Moradabad.

Sambhal is identified as Shambhala, a village which is mentioned as the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth and last incarnation of Vishnu, in the Mahabharata and the Hindu Puranas such as the Skanda Purana, Bhavishya Purana and later Kalki Purana (the city is also home to a "Shri Kalki Vishnu Mandir"). This was borrowed into the Buddhist mythology of Tibetan Buddhism where it is described as a mythological kingdom and a pure land beyond the Himalayas from where the future Maitreya will emerge. According to Ibn Battuta, Toghon Temür the last Yuan dynasty emperor of China had sent an embassy to the Sultan of Delhi Muhammad bin Tughluq, requesting permission to rebuild a Buddhist temple at Sambhal, which at the time attracted pilgrims from Tibet.

Sambhal has been an urban center for hundreds of...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.