Gauhati(gouhä`tē), city (1991 pop. 584,342), Assam state, NE India, on the Brahmaputra River. It is a railroad hub and a shipping point for tea, rice, jute, and cotton. The town has an oil refinery and is the site of Guwahati Univ. and Earle Law School. Guwahati is identified with Pragjyoshapura, the capital of King Bhavadatta, who is mentioned in the great Sanskrit epic MahabharataMahabharata
, classical Sanskrit epic of India, probably composed between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200. The Mahabharata, comprising more than 90,000 couplets, usually of 32 syllables, is the longest single poem in world literature.