OUDH

OUDH is a region in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. This is an ancient region that found mention in even the great epic Ramayan. At that time it was a sovereign state and king Dashrath was the ruler having its capital at Ayodhya. It was traditionally ruled by many great kings who were forefathers of Dashrath, who was descendent of the Surya Dynasty. It was ruled by Lord Ram, the son of Dashrath. He ruled the region so well that it became a proverbial Ram Rajya where people have no miseries.

In modern India, Oudh became a province in the Bengal Presidency, occupying the basin of the Gumti, Gogra, and Rapti Rivers, and stretching from the N. bank of the Ganges to the lower Himalayas; is a great alluvial plain, through which these rivers flow between natural embankments, affording irrigation by their marshes and overflows. During British Raj other industries were added to the sole industry of agriculture; the crops were mainly wheat and rice, which were exported by rail and river. The population was one of the densest in the world, the labouring classes being very poor. The only large town was Lucknow, on the Gumti.

One of the earliest centres of Aryan civilisation, Oudh became subject to the empire of Delhi in the 12th century, but was an independent State for a century prior to its annexation by the British in 1856.

The region became part of Uttar Pradesh after independence, especially after reorganization of states in India.