HASTINAPUR, an ancient city of India, in the Meerut district, North-Western Provinces, lying on the bank of the Burïgangâ, or former bed of the Ganges, 22 miles N.E. of Meerut. It formed the capital of the great Pândava kingdom, celebrated in the Mahabharata, and probably one of the earliest Aryan settlements outside the Punjab. Few traces of the ancient city now remain, but tradition points to a group of shapeless mounds as the residence of the children of the moon, the Lunar princes of the house of Bhârata whose deeds are commemorated in the great national epic. After the conclusion of the famous war which forms the central episode of that poem, Hastinapur remained for some time the metropolis of the descendants of Parikshit, but the town was finally swept away by a flood of the Ganges, and the capital was transferred to Kausâmbi.