Akbar's Tomb

At Sikandra, on the old road from Agra to Mathura, the Mughal emperor Akbar lies beneath a building unlike any other imperial tomb of his dynasty. Instead of a single great dome, the mausoleum rises as a four-tiered pyramid of deep red sandstone, its lower storey ringed by arcaded cloisters, and is crowned by an open pavilion of white marble that holds a cenotaph under the sky. The real grave, following custom, lies in a chamber in the basement.

Akbar ruled from 1556 to 1605 and turned the Mughal state into an empire covering much of the Indian subcontinent; his courts at Agra, Delhi and Fatehpur Sikri drew poets, scholars, architects and holy men of many faiths. He fell ill in October 1605 and died later that month. His son and successor Jahangir planned the tomb and completed it between 1605 and 1613, setting it within a walled enclosure about 105 metres square amid grounds of some 119 acres. Agra itself, on the Yamuna, was one of the great Mughal capitals, and the tomb belongs to the same architectural world as the city's fort and the Taj Mahal.

The approach is through a monumental southern gateway, the largest of four, whose four white marble minarets topped with domed kiosks anticipate those of the Taj Mahal. Its walls are covered in inlaid panels of white marble, red sandstone and black slate in geometric, floral and calligraphic patterns that point ahead to the finer inlay of the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah. Inside, a long Persian eulogy was composed and inscribed by the calligrapher Abd al-Haqq of Shiraz, who later received the title Amanat Khan and went on to design the inscriptions of the Taj Mahal; he signed his work here in three places. The hall that holds Akbar's tombstone also contains those of two of his daughters, Shakr-un-Nissa Begum and Aram Banu Begum.

The tomb has not always been at peace. In March 1688, during the reign of Aurangzeb, Jat rebels led by Raja Ram plundered it, carrying off gold, silver, jewels and carpets, and according to the accounts the emperor's remains were burned. Extensive repairs were carried out under the Viceroy Lord Curzon and completed in 1905. About a kilometre away stands the tomb of Mariam-uz-Zamani, Akbar's wife, who laid out a garden around his mausoleum and was buried near him in 1623.

Getting there

The tomb stands in Sikandra, about 8 km west-north-west of central Agra, on the Agra–Mathura highway (NH-19, formerly NH-2). The nearest airport is Agra Airport (AGR), about 7 km away.