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town in Agra District, Uttar Pradesh, India
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Fatehpur Sikri (Hindi: [ˈfətɛɦpʊɾ ˈsiːkɾiː]) is a town in the Agra District of Uttar Pradesh, India. Situated 35.7 kilometres (22.2 mi) from the district headquarters of Agra, Fatehpur Sikri itself was founded as the capital of the Mughal Empire in 1571 by Emperor Akbar, serving this role from 1571 to 1585, when Akbar abandoned it due to a campaign in Punjab and was later completely abandoned in 1610.
The name of the city is derived from the village called Sikri which previously occupied the location. An Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) excavation from 1999 to 2000 indicated that there was housing, temples and commercial centres here before Akbar built his capital. The region was settled by Sungas following their expansion. It was controlled by Sikarwar Rajputs from the 7th to 16th century CE until the Battle of Khanwa (1527).
The khanqah of Sheikh Salim Chishti existed earlier at this place. Akbar's son, Jahangir, was born in the village of Sikri to his favourite wife Mariam-uz-Zamani in 1569, and, in that year, Akbar began construction of a religious compound to commemorate the Sheikh who had predicted the birth. After Jahangir's second birthday, he began the construction of a walled city and imperial palace here. The city came to be known as Fatehpur Sikri, the "City of Victory", after Akbar's victorious Gujarat campaign in 1573.
After occupying Agra in 1803, the East India Company established an administrative centre here and it remained so until 1850. In 1815, the Marquess of Hastings ordered the repair of monuments at Sikri.
Because of its historical importance as the capital of the Mughal Empire and its outstanding architecture, Fatehpur Sikri was awarded the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
Archaeological evidence points to settlement of the region since the Painted Grey Ware period. According to historian Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, the region flourished under Sunga rule and then under Sikarwar Rajputs, who built a fortress when they controlled the area from 7th to 16th century, until the Battle of Khanwa (1527). The area later came under the rule of the Delhi Sultanate and many mosques were built at the place which grew in size during the period of the Khalji dynasty.
Excavations at Birchhabili Tila, on the southeast bank of a former lake, indicate the presence of a settlement as far back as the 6th century CE. The oldest layer, dating to the 6th through 9th centuries, contained various remains of buildings, including brick walls, building foundations, one dressed sandstone pillar, and a man-made pit also made of sandstone. A broken sculpture of the Jain goddess Ambika dated stylistically to the 6th or 7th century, along with the stone pillar and a two-letter inscription in the Brahmi script, indicates the presence of a Jain shrine here during this period. Other finds from this layer included various pottery fragments, game pieces, writing tablets, moulds, glass and iron bangles, and a spearhead.
The second archaeological layer, dating roughly from the 9th to 11th centuries, contained the remains of a Jain temple was built out of locally quarried red sandstone. Numerous Jain sculptures date from this period, including one of the Jain version of Sarasvati with an inscription on the pedestal recording that it was installed at Saikrikya (Sanskrit: सैकरिकय, IAST: Saikrikya) in the year 1010 CE (1067 VS), during the reign of a king named Vajrāma. Saikrikya represents the contemporary name of Sikri, and Vajrāma may be identical to the Kachchhapaghata king Vajradaman of Gwalior, suggesting that Sikri was under the control of the Gwalior branch of the Kachchhapaghatas in the early 11th century.
In 1018–19, Mahmud of Ghazni led a major raid into this region of India, attacking and destroying temples in nearby cities such as Mathura, Bulandshahr, and Bayana. However, he appears to have left the temples at Sikri alone — another devotional sculpture at Sikri dated to the year 1044 indicates that he left the temples here alone. It was more likely Alauddin Khalji who destroyed them, sometime around the year 1300; a mosque built in Sikri under his rule still stands, so he at least had some sort of involvement in the town. A gap in archaeological evidence indicates that the site at Birchhabili Tila may have been abandoned and then re-occupied at some point between the 12th and 16th centuries; some structures were built right on top of the temple remains during this period.
Basing his arguments on the excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1999–2000 at the Chabeli Tila, senior Agra journalist Bhanu Pratap Singh said the antique pieces, statues, and structures all point to a lost "culture and religious site," more than 1,000 years ago. "The excavations yielded a rich crop of Jain statues, hundreds of them, including the foundation stone of a temple with the date. The statues were a thousand years old of Bhagwan Adi Nath, Bhagwan Rishabh Nath, Bhagwan Mahavir and Jain Yakshinis," said Swarup Chandra Jain, senior leader of the Jain community. Historian Sugam Anand states that there is proof of habitation, temples and commercial centres even before Akbar established it as his capital. He states that the open space on a ridge was used by Akbar to build his capital.
Even before Akbar chose the site for his capital city, his predecessors Babur and Humayun did much to redesign Fatehpur Sikri's urban layout. Attilio Petruccioli, a scholar of Islamic architecture and Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy, notes that "Babur and his successors" wanted "to get away from the noise and confusion of Agra [and] build an uninterrupted sequence of gardens on the free left bank of the Yamuna, linked both by boat and by land." Petruccioli adds that when such escapist landscapes are envisioned, the monument becomes the organising element of the city at large, partly due to its orientation at a significant location and partly due to its sheer size. Buland Darwaza was one such organising element, which at a height of 46 metres (150 ft) towered over the city and is now one of the most recognisable Mughal monuments in the country.
The place was much loved by Babur, who called it Shukri (Thanks), after its large lake that was used by Mughal armies. Annette Beveridge in her translation of Baburnama noted that Babur points "Sikri" to read "Shukri". Per his memoirs, Babur constructed a garden here called the "Garden of Victory" after defeating Rana Sangha at its outskirts. Gulbadan Begum's Humayun-Nama describes that in the garden he built an octagonal pavilion which he used for relaxation and writing. In the center of the nearby lake, he built a large platform. A baoli exists at the base of a rock scarp about a kilometre from the Hiran Minar. This was probably the original site of a well-known epigraph commemorating his victory.
Abul Fazl records Akbar's reasons for the foundation of the city in Akbarnama: "In as much as his exalted sons (Salim and Murad) had been born at Sikri, and the God-knowing spirit of Shaikh Salim had taken possession thereof, his holy heart desired to give outward splendour to this spot which possessed spiritual grandeur. Now that his standards had arrived at this place, his former design was pressed forward, and an order was issued that the superintendents of affairs should erect lofty buildings for the special use of the Shahinshah."
Akbar remained heirless until 1569 when his son, who became known as Jahangir, was born in the village of Sikri in 1569. Akbar began the construction of a religious compound in honour of the Chishti saint Sheikh Salim, who had predicted the birth of Jahangir. After Jahangir's second birthday, he began the construction of a walled city and imperial palace probably to test his son's stamina. By constructing his capital at the khanqah of Sheikh Salim, Akbar associated himself with this popular Sufi order and brought legitimacy to his reign through this affiliation.
The city was founded in 1571 and was named after the village of Sikri which occupied the spot before. The Buland Darwaza was built in honour of his successful campaign in Gujarat, when the city came to be known as Fatehpur Sikri - "The City of Victory". It was abandoned by Akbar in 1585 when he went to fight a campaign in Punjab. It was later completely abandoned by 1610. The reason for its abandonment is usually given as the failure of the water supply, though Akbar's loss of interest may also have been the reason since it was built solely on his whim. Ralph Fitch described it as such, "Agra and Fatehpore Sikri are two very great cities, either of them much greater than London, and very populous. Between Agra and Fatehpore are 12 miles (Kos) and all the way is a market of victuals and other things, as full as though a man were still in a town, and so many people as if a man were in a market."
Akbar visited the city only once in 1601 after abandoning it. William Finch, visiting it 4–5 years after Akbar's death, stated, "It is all ruinate," writing, "lying like a waste desert." During the epidemic of bubonic plague from 1616 to 1624, Jahangir stayed for three months here in 1619. Muhammad Shah stayed here for some time and the repair works were started again. However, with the decline of Mughal Empire, the conditions of the buildings worsened.
While chasing Daulat Rao Sindhia's battalions in October 1803, Gerard Lake left the most cumbersome baggage and siege guns in the town. After occupying Agra in 1803, the British established an administrative centre here and it remained so until 1850. In 1815, the Marquess of Hastings ordered the repair of monuments at Sikri and Sikandra. The town was a municipality from 1865 to 1904 and was later made a notified area. The population in 1901 was 7,147.
As of 2011 Indian Census, Fatehpur Sikri had a total population of 32,905, of which 17,392 were males and 15,513 were females. Population within the age group of 0 to 6 years was 5,139. The total number of literates in Fatehpur Sikri was 17,236, which constituted 52.4% of the population with male literacy of 60.4% and female literacy of 43.4%. The effective literacy rate of 7+ population of Fatehpur Sikri was 62.1%, of which male literacy rate was 71.6% and female literacy rate was 51.4%. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes population was 4,110 and 1 respectively. Fatehpur Sikri had 4936 households in 2011.
According to the 2011 census, 98.81% of the people identified as Hindi speakers and 1.04% as Brajbhasha speakers.
Fatehpur Sikri is one of the fifteen Block headquarters in the Agra district. It has 52 Gram panchayats (Village Panchayat) under it.
The Fatehpur Sikri, is a constituency of the Lok Sabha, Lower house of the Indian Parliament, and further comprises five Vidhan Sabha(legislative assembly) segments:
Fatehpur Sikri sits on a rocky ridge, 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) in length and 1 km (0.62 mi) wide, and the palace city is surrounded by a 6 km (3.7 mi) wall on three sides with the fourth bordered by a lake. The city is generally organised around this 40 m high ridge, and falls roughly into the shape of a rhombus. The general layout of the ground structures, especially the "continuous and compact pattern of gardens and services and facilities" that characterised the city leads urban archaeologists to conclude that Fatehpur Sikri was built primarily to afford leisure and luxury to its famous residents.
The dynastic architecture of Fatehpur Sikri was modelled on Timurid forms and styles. The city was built massively and preferably with red sandstone. Gujarati influences are also seen in its architectural vocabulary and decor of the palaces of Fatehpur Sikri. The city's architecture reflects both the Hindu and Muslim form of domestic architecture popular in India at the time. The remarkable preservation of these original spaces allows modern archaeologists to reconstruct scenes of Mughal court life, and to better understand the hierarchy of the city's royal and noble residents.
It is accessed through gates along the 5 miles (8.0 km) long fort wall, namely, Delhi Gate, the Lal Gate, the Agra Gate and Birbal's Gate, Chandanpal Gate, The Gwalior Gate, the Tehra Gate, the Chor Gate, and the Ajmeri Gate. The palace contains summer palace and winter palace for Queen Mariam-uz-Zamani commonly known as Jodha Bai.
Some of the important buildings in this city, both religious and secular are:
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