Fatehpur Sikri — fort
Image by Makalu from Pixabay

Fatehpur Sikri

  • Elevation213 m
  • 2 min read
  • 27.091° N 77.661° E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • The English traveller Ralph Fitch, who saw the court in the 1580s, judged both Agra and Fatehpur Sikri to be much larger than London.
  • The paved Pachisi Court is laid out as a giant board for the ancestor of Ludo, on which, tradition says, people served as the playing pieces.
  • The central doors of the Buland Darwaza are known locally as the Horseshoe Gate, after the custom of nailing horseshoes to them for luck.
  • The Hiran Minar, studded with stone elephant tusks, is said to honour Akbar's favourite elephant, though it more likely marked the start of a line of mileposts.
  • The five storeys of the Panch Mahal shrink towards a single domed kiosk and rest on 176 carved columns in all.
  • In the Ibadat Khana, built in 1575, Akbar gathered scholars of different religions for debates that fed his syncretic creed, the Din-i-Ilahi.
  • A Jain sculpture of Sarasvati found in the 1999–2000 excavations records its installation at Saikrikya, the old name of Sikri, in 1010 CE.
  • Babur liked to call the place Shukri, meaning thanks, and its large lake once watered Mughal armies.
  • Akbar came back only once after leaving, in 1601, and a few years after his death an English visitor described the city as a ruined waste.
  • Jahangir stayed here for three months in 1619, in the middle of the bubonic plague epidemic of 1616 to 1624.

Why it is worth it

Fatehpur Sikri was an imperial capital for barely fourteen years. The Mughal emperor Akbar had waited a long time for an heir, and when his son Salim, the future Jahangir, was born in the village of Sikri in 1569, he credited the prediction of the Sufi saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, who lived there. Akbar first built a great mosque around the saint's hermitage and then, from 1571, a walled city and palace on the ridge beside it. After his conquest of Gujarat in 1573 it took the name Fatehpur, the City of Victory. In 1585 Akbar left for a campaign in the Punjab and did not return to rule from it; by around 1610 the city was deserted. Water shortage is the usual explanation, though historians also point to the emperor's changing priorities.

What survives is an unusually complete Mughal court city in red sandstone, laid out along a rocky ridge about 3 km long and enclosed by walls some 6 km long on three sides, with a former lake on the fourth. The religious quarter is dominated by the Jama Masjid, dated by its inscription to 1571–72, and by the Buland Darwaza, a victory gate added around 1576 that rises 54 metres from the ground and carries an inscription on the transience of the world. In the mosque courtyard stands the white marble tomb of Salim Chishti, with its pierced stone screens, serpentine brackets and a mother-of-pearl canopy over the grave. The palace zone holds the Diwan-i-Aam for public audiences; the Diwan-i-Khas, whose single carved column supports a circular platform linked to the corners by stone walkways; the five-storey Panch Mahal; the Anup Talao pool; and the largest residence, traditionally called Jodha Bai's Palace, where Rajput and Gujarati elements mix with Timurid forms.

Excavations in 1999–2000 showed that Sikri was inhabited long before Akbar, with Jain temple remains from around the 10th and 11th centuries. Babur had already laid out a garden here after his victory at Khanwa in 1527. After the Mughals, the town decayed until the East India Company took an interest; the Marquess of Hastings ordered repairs in 1815. Fatehpur Sikri was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986, and the modern town of the same name spreads below the ridge.

Getting there

The monuments sit directly above the town of Fatehpur Sikri, about 0.3 km from its centre, and about 37 km by road from Agra. Agra Airport (AGR) is about 31 km away in a straight line; many visitors instead arrive by train or road through Agra. Fatehpur Sikri railway station is about 1 km from the town centre, and state buses as well as taxis and tour coaches run from Agra.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Uttar Pradesh 6The Most Beautiful Places in India 90The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in India 5The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in India 14The Most Impressive UNESCO-Listed Forts 17The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India 26The Most Impressive Forts 33The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 92The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557

From the encyclopaedia

Fatehpur Sikri 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.

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27.09111, 77.66111per Wikidata