Pasargadae

Pasargadae, founded by Cyrus the Great around 546 BCE on the Pars plain, was the first Achaemenid capital and holds Cyrus’ own simple limestone tomb (still standing). The name is Pars-gard, 'seat of the Persians' — the Old Persian gard corresponds to Sanskrit garta, the seat or court, cognate with the –karta of modern names like Jakarta. Cyrus (reigned 559-530 BCE) is Kurus̐ in the inscriptions, the same Kuru of the Aitareya Brahmana and the Mahabharata; the Aitareya describes Kuru as a country of everlasting happiness beyond the most northern Himalayan ranges, which some read as a memory of the Central Asian Aryan homeland Cyrus’ Persians and the Indian Aryans both left.