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Early medieval period

The 7th-century Buddhist Chinese traveller Xuanzang (Hiuen Tsang) in Fascicle V of Dà Táng Xīyù Jì (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) explicitly mentions Prayaga as both a country and a "great city" where the Yamuna river meets Ganges river. He states that the great city has hundreds of " deva temples" and to the south of the city are two Buddhist institutions (a stupa built by Ashoka and a monastery). His 644 CE memoir also mentions the Hindu bathing rituals at the junction of the rivers, where people fast near it and then bathe believing that this washes away their sins. Wealthy people and kings come to this "great city" to give away alms at the Grand Place of Almsgiving. According to Xuanzang's travelogue, the confluence is to the east of this "great city" and the site where alms are distributed every day. Kama MacLean – an Indologist who has published articles on the Kumbh Mela predominantly based on the colonial archives and English-language media, states based on emails from other scholars and a more recent interpretation of the 7th-century Xuanzang memoir, that Prayag was also an important site in 7th-century India of a Buddhist festival. She states that Xuanzang festivities at Prayag featured a Buddha statue and involved alms giving, consistent with Buddhist practices. According to Li Rongxi – a scholar credited with a recent and complete translation of a critical version of the Dà Táng Xīyù Jì, Xuanzang mentions that the site of the alms-giving is a deva temple, and the alms-giving practice is recommended by the "records at this temple". Rongxi adds that the population of Prayaga was predominantly heretics (non-Buddhists, Hindus), and affirms that Prayaga attracted festivities of deva -worshipping heretics and also the orthodox Buddhists.

Xuanzang also describes a ritual-suicide practice at Prayaga, then concludes it is absurd. He mentions a tree with "evil spirits" that stands before another deva temple. People commit suicide by jumping from it in the belief that they will go to heaven. According to Ariel Glucklich – a scholar of Hinduism and Anthropology of Religion, the Xuanzang memoir mentions both the superstitious devotional suicide and narrates a story of how a Brahmin of a more ancient era tried to put an end to this practice. Alexander Cunningham believed the tree described by Xuanzang was the Akshayavat tree. It still existed at the time of Al-Biruni who calls it as "Prayaga", located at the confluence of Ganga and Yamuna.

The historic literature of Hinduism and Buddhism before the Mughal emperor Akbar use the term Prayag, and never use the term Allahabad or its variants. Its history before the Mughal Emperor Akbar is unclear. In contrast to the account of Xuanzang, the Muslim historians place the tree at the confluence of the rivers. The historian Dr. D. B. Dubey states that it appears that between this period, the sandy plain was washed away by the Ganges, to an extent that the temple and tree seen by the Chinese traveller too was washed away, with the river later changing its course to the east and the confluence shifting to the place where Akbar laid the foundations of his fort.

Henry Miers Elliot believed that a town existed before Allahabad was founded. He adds that after Mahmud of Ghazni captured Asní near Fatehpur, he couldn't have crossed into Bundelkhand without visiting Allahabad had there been a city worth plundering. He further adds that its capture should have been heard when Muhammad of Ghor captured Benares. However, Ghori's historians never noticed it. Akbarnama mentions that the Mughal emperor Akbar founded a great city in Allahabad. 'Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni and Nizamuddin Ahmad mention that Akbar laid the foundations of an Imperial City there which he called Ilahabas.