Unesco has taken a group of 12-fortified buildings and sites along the western, northern, and eastern border of France into its world heritage list. They represent the finest examples of the work of Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban(1633-1707), a military engineer of King Louis XIV. These sites are :
1. Vauban Citad el, Arras—Arras refers to ancient Ar-Ras or Ros
2. Citadel of Besançon—Besan-con refers to King Sasanka/or settlement of Bassa or place of selling cloths.
3. Sites at Blaye-Cussac-Fort-Médoc—Blaye means ‘bali’ or ‘Bruhi’ ; the name Bali also means a royal seat of administration identifying Baal deity region; Cussac may mean royal clan at Kasia/Kasi or royal seat at Caesarea or Kesuria; similarly, Medoc means ancient Madra or Mdea.
4. Briançon, Hautes-Alpes—Brian-con means ‘Rhea’ settlement; here Alps means ‘Alaba’ or Alavi.
5. Tour Vauban—Vau-ban of Tour refers to ancient Tyre
6. Ville Neuve, Longwy—Ville Neuve means ‘Place of Nine’ and Longwy means ‘Ranga’ or Raghei, a part of this ‘nine-division’.
7. Place forte, Mont-Dauphin—-Mt Davor or Mt Daub
8. Citadel and city walls, Mount-Louis—Mt Loi
9. Ville Neuve, Neuf-Brisach—Brisach refers to Brischika or the Scorpion
10. Citadel and city walls, Saint-Martin-de-Ré—St Martha of the country of Rai/Rui/Ra
11. Watchtowers, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue—Saint –Vasta means ‘a saint from ‘Vast’ or –Vast of Buddhist literature referring to Kapila-vastu etc; Hougue and Hague marks the same ancient site of Aggi/Agga.
12. Sites at Villefranche-de-Conflent—it seems that this name Conflent identifies the settlement of frank people along with confluence of three rivers at Prayag. This is evident from the coat of arms of Villefranche.
According to Unesco ‘Vauban’s work bears witness to the peak of classic bastioned fortification, typical of western military architecture of modern times…Vauban played a major role in the history of fortification. The imitation of his standard-models of military buildings in Europe and on the American continent, the dissemination in Russian and Turkish of his theoretical thinking along with the use of the forms of his fortification as a model for fortresses in the Far East, bear witness to the universality of his work…’.
Name Vauban has its root in ‘Bahuputta’, a sacred place of the ancient world; a shrine of a many-branched nigrodha tree or the Wisdom Tree existed here. People from all corners of the ‘inhabited world’ came to pray the god of this tree. Bau means ‘Bo’ which in other words refers to the Tree of Wisdom or the Bodhi Tree, and also refers to to the Bo-island of ancient literature. ‘-ban’ means ‘forest’. So name Vauban marks this ‘forest of Tree of Wisdom’.
In the epic the Mahabharata, name Babru-bahana appears as a king of ancient Babylon; the name Vau-ban finds Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban as belonging to a royal clan to whom King Louis XIV appointed as a military engineer. It is interesting to see Sebastien which represents the ancient Sravasti, capital of ancient Kosal kingdom. Sravasti is also a ‘title’ in Indian society and it is identical with Sebastien of Roman history
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