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Agra
Agra is a medieval
city situated on the banks of the river Yamuna. It
is generally accepted that Sultan Sikandar Lodī, the Ruler of
the Delhi Sultanate founded it in the year 1504. After the
Sultan's death the city passed on to his son Sultan Ibrāhīm
Lodhī. He ruled his Sultanate from Agra until he fell fighting
to Bābar in the First battle of Panipat fought in 1526.
In the year 1556, the great Hindu warrior, Hemu Vikramaditya
also known as Samrat Hem Chander Vikramaditya won Agra as the
Prime Minister cum Chief of Army of Adil Shah of the Afghan
Sūrī Dynasty. The commander of Humāyūn / Akbar's forces in
Agra, Tardi Beg Khan was so scared of Hemu that he retreated
from the city without a fight. This was Hemu's 21st continuous
win since 1554, and he later went on to conquer Delhi, having
his coronation at Purānā Qil'a in Delhi 0n 7th Oct. 1556 and
re-established the Hindu Kingdom and the Vikramaditya Dynasty
in North India.
The golden age of the city began with the Mughals. It was
known then as Akbarabād and remained the capital of the Mughal
Empire under the Emperors Akbar, Jahāngīr and Shāh Jahān. Shāh
Jahān later shifted his capital to Shāhjahānabād in the year
1649.
Taj Mahal.Since Akbarabād was one of the most important cities
in India under the Mughals, it witnessed a lot of building
activity. Babar, the founder of the Mughal dynasty laid out
the first formal Persian garden on the banks of river Yamuna.
The garden is called the Arām Bāgh or the Garden of
Relaxation. His grandson Akbar raised the towering ramparts of
the Great Red Fort, besides making Agra a center for learning,
arts, commerce and religion. Akbar also built a new city on
the outskirts of Akbarabād called Fatehpūr Sikrī. This city
was built in the form of a Mughal military camp in stone.
His son Jahāngīr had a love of gardens and flora and fauna and
laid many gardens inside the Red Fort or Lāl Qil'a. Shāh Jahān
,known for his keen interest in architecture, gave Akbarabād
its most prized monument, The Tāj Mahal. Built in loving
memory of his wife Mumtāz Mahal, the mausoleum was completed
in 1653.
Shāh Jahān later shifted the capital to Delhi during his
reign, but his son Aurangzeb moved the capital back to
Akbarabād, usurping his father and imprisoning him in the Fort
there. Akbarabād remained the capital of India during the rule
of Aurangzeb until he shifted it to Aurangabad in the Deccan
in 1653. After the decline of the Mughal Empire, the city came
under the influence of Marathas and Jats and was called Agra,
before falling into the hands of the British Raj in 1803.
Agra, Main Street, c.1858In 1835 when the Presidency of Agra
was established by the British, the city became the seat of
government, and just two year later it was the witness to the
Agra famine of 1837–38. During the Indian rebellion of 1857
British rule across India was threatened, news of the
rebellion had reached Agra on 11 May and on 30 May two
companies of native infantry, the 44th and 67th regiments,
rebelled and marched to Delhi. The next morning native Indian
troops in Agra were forced to disarm, on 15 June Gwalior
(which lies south of Agra) rebelled. By 3 July the British
were forced to withdraw into the fort. Two days later a small
British force at Sucheta were defeated and forced to withdraw,
this lead to a mob sacking the city. However, the rebels moved
onto Delhi which allowed the British to restore order by 8
July. Delhi fell to the British in September, the following
month rebels who had fled Delhi along with rebels from Central
India marched on Agra - but were defeated. After this British
rule was again secured over the city until the independence of
India in 1947.
Agra is the birth place of the religion known as Dīn-i Ilāhī,
which flourished during the reign of Akbar and also of the
Radhaswami Faith, which has around two million followers
worldwide.
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