• Capital: Virata Nagari (Bairat, Jaipur Rajasthan)

Virata was a kingdom ruled by the Matsya king by the name Virata

Virata

Virata , in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, was a king in whose court the Pandavas spent a year in concealment during their exile. Virata was married to Queen Sudeshna and was the father of Prince Uttara and Princess Uttarā, who married Abhimanyu son of Arjuna. Their son Parikshit succeeded...

. It was here that the Pandavas spent their 13th year of anonymity (Ajgnata Vasa) after their 12 years of forest-life (Vana Vasa) in the forests of Kamyaka

Kamyaka Forest

Kamyaka Forest was situated on the western boundary of the Kuru Kingdom , on the banks of the Saraswati River. It lay to the west of the Kurukshetra plain. It contained within it a lake called the Kamyaka lake . Kamyaka forest is mentioned as being situated at the head of the Thar desert, near...

 and Dwaita

Dwaita Forest

Dvaita Forest or Dvaitavana was situated to the south of the Kamyaka Forest. It contained within it a lake called the Dwaita lake, abounding with flowers, and delightful to look at, and inhabited by many species of birds, elephants and many trees . It was on the south-western outskirts of...

. Its capital was Virata Nagari, modern Bairat

Bairat

Bairat is a town in northern Jaipur district of Rajasthan, India. It is located 52 km north of Jaipur, and 66 km west of Alwar.-History:...

 in the Jaipur

Jaipur

Jaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million....

 district of Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

. Upaplavya

Upaplavya

Upaplavya was a city in the Matsya Kingdom ruled by king Virata as per the epic Mahabharata. It was the city where the Pandavas camped and planned their strategy for the Kurukshetra War. The allies of the Pandavas held extensive meetings in the tents constructed at Upaplavya, and stayed there as...

 was another city in this kingdom where the Pandavas and their allies camped before the beginning of the great Kurukshetra War

Kurukshetra war

According to the Indian epic poem Mahābhārata, a dynastic succession struggle between two groups of cousins of an Indo-Aryan kingdom called Kuru, the Kauravas and Pandavas, for the throne of Hastinapura resulted in the Kurukshetra War in which a number of ancient kingdoms participated as allies of...

.

King Virata and his sons took part in the great war and perished. Virata's daughter Uttara married Arjuna

Arjuna

Arjuna in Indian mythology is the greatest warrior on earth and is one of the Pandavas, the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahābhārata. Arjuna, whose name means 'bright', 'shining', 'white' or 'silver' Arjuna (Devanagari: अर्जुन, Thai: อรชุน, Orachun, Tamil: Arjunan, Indonesian and Javanese: Harjuna,...

's son Abhimanyu

Abhimanyu

Abhimanyu is a tragic hero in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. He is the son of Arjuna and Subhadra, who is the half-sister of Lord Krishna...

 and gave birth to Parikshit  who later became the Kuru king after the reign of the Pandavas.