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Located in Agra, Fatehpur Sikri is a walled city that served as the capital of the Mughal Empire during the end of the 16th Century. The city, however, was utilised for only fourteen years until being wholly abandoned after the shift. It has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and has become one of the most popular tourist spots near Agra.
HISTORY
The renowned Mughal Emperor Akbar founded it in 1571. Fatehpur Sikri was the most outstanding architectural achievement. The name of this city is taken in part from a town named Sikri, which was once located in the exact area where the current city was founded. As per history, Akbar travelled here to learn from a Sufi Shaikh Saint named Salim Chisti. When the saint foresaw the birth of his successor, Akbar began erecting the village of his capital.
FATEHPUR SIKRI
Fatehpur Sikri was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1571 to 1585.
When Akbar came back victorious from the Gujarat expedition in 1573, he named the city ‘The City of Triumph’. The current name – Fatehpur Sikri – was coined later on to celebrate this victory. When he proceeded to Punjab in 1585 to lead the next military expedition, he abandoned the city. The city was vacated due to a shortage of water. Consequently, Akbar relocated his kingdom’s headquarters to Lahore, thus altogether abandoning the city of Fatehpur Sikri in 1610.
Colonial expeditions assumed complete control over Agra in 1803, making it the centre of its administrative affairs till 1850. Hasting Marquess directed the renovation of Fatehpur Sikri’s monuments in 1815. The palace of Rang Mahal was erected in 1569, Akbar’s first undertaking in this same area. History holds that Akbar took his pregnant wife to Sikri, where Salim Ad-Din Chisti predicted the birth of Akbar’s three sons.
At the time of Akbar’s triumphant return from his campaign in Gujarat, he added the prefix “Fatehabad,” which was later shortened to “Fatehpur” with a similar use (both meaning the “City of Victory”).
CONSTRUCTION
The construction of the palace complex began in 1572; it was later accelerated.
Even though the Emperor is seen in miniature surveying the structure, there is no historical information on the designers who served Akbar or the extent to which the Emperor was involved in the construction.
This palace was constructed in two phases; it mostly started from 1572 and lasted till 1575, at the time when major structures were erected and completed, and from 1575 to 1585 when halls and corridors were added to the already set buildings to fulfil the demands of the Emperor and his family.
Before being abandoned, the complex functioned as the Emperor’s principal residence quarters for fourteen years. In 1585, the empire’s geographical focus shifted to Afghanistan, and Akbar then migrated along with his court to Lahore.
Fatehpur Sikri is situated on a long, thin red sandstone ridge that extends from southwest to northeast. These buildings, on either hand, are rotated at 45 degrees from this position and precisely aligned in the north-south direction. Before Akbar’s reign, this particular ride managed to host a multitude of constructions. Many of the earlier structures were retained, regardless of the point that the buildings during Akbar’s reign were orientated differently than the earlier ones. The new mosque was designed with the west (qibla) in consideration, as was the rest of the royal complex.
It is also probable that Akbar’s compound was built in accordance with the principles of Vastu and India’s ancient architectural system. However, no textual evidence exists to support this idea.
The compound is segregated into three different areas: Jama Masjid, the Shaykh Salim Chisti’s mausoleum integrated inside the courtyard that dominated the whole composition of the structure and its site scale, and the modest royal place of the Nayabad neighbourhood are situated upon the ridge’s topmost level. Akbar and his family used to stay in the Nayabad area while the palace was just being built.
Conclusion
The Jama Masjid was the first religious edifice built atop the ridge’s crest in Fatehpur Sikri. It was finished in 1571-72. This mosque is home to Sheikh Salim Chisti’s tomb, an exceptional work of carved embellishment built around 1580-81 and then embellished under Jahangir’s reign in 1606. Buland Darwaza (Lofty Gate), a 40-metre-high edifice south of the court, was constructed in 1575 to celebrate Akbar’s triumph in Gujarat in 1572. It is undoubtedly the most magnificent monument of Akbar’s reign and one of India’s most faultless architectural achievements.
