Kannauj (Hindustani pronunciation: [kənːɔːd͡ʒ]) is a city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city's name is a corrupted form of the classical name Kanyakubja. It was also known as Mahodaya during the time of Mihira Bhoja. It is situated 123 kilometres west of the state capital, Lucknow. Kannauj is an ancient city. It is said that the Kanyakubja Brahmins who included Shandilya (teacher of Rishi Bharadwaja) were held one of the three prominent families originally from Kannauj. In Classical India, it served as the center of imperial Indian dynasties. The earliest of these was the Maukhari dynasty, and later, Emperor Harsha of the Vardhana dynasty. The city later came under the Gahadavala dynasty, and under the rule of Govindachandra, the city reached "unprecedented glory". Kannauj was also the main place of war in the Tripartite struggle between the Gurjara-Pratihara, the Palas and the Rashtrakutas. However, the "glory of Imperial Kannauj" ended with conquests of the Delhi Sultanate. Kannauj is famous for distilling of scents. It is known as "India's perfume capital" and is famous for its traditional Kannauj Perfume, a government protected entity, Kannauj itself has more than 200 perfume distilleries and is a market center for perfume, tobacco and rose water. It has given its name to a distinct dialect of the Hindustani known as Kannauji, which has two different codes or registers. History Early history Archaeological discoveries show that Kannauj was inhabited by the Painted Grey Ware and Northern Black Polished Ware cultures, ca. 1200-600 BCE and ca. 700-200 BCE, respectively. Under the names of Kuśasthala and Kanyakubja, it is mentioned as a well-known town in the Hindu Epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, and by the grammarian Patanjali (ca. 150 BCE). The early Buddhist literature mentions Kannauj as Kannakujja, and refers to its location on the trade route from Mathura to Varanasi and Rajgir. Kannauj may have been known to the Greco-Roman civilization under the name of Kanagora or Kanogiza, which appears in Geography by Ptolemy (ca. 140 CE), but this identification is not confirmed. It was also visited by the Chinese Buddhist travellers Faxian and Xuanzang in the fifth and seventh centuries CE, respectively. Kannauj formed part of the Gupta Empire. During the decline of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century, the Maukhari dynasty of Kannauj - who had served