The
"City of Victory" Fatehpur Sikri,,
which is at 35 kilometers from Agra on a low
hill of the Vindhya mountain range. Before the
reign of Akbar (1556-1605), the Mughal King
who built Fatehpur Sikri, the site of the future
city had already earned an auspicious reputation.
Babar, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty and
Akbar's grandfather, had won a battle here over
Rana Sanga of Mewar.
In gratitude
he named the area Shukri, which means "thanks".
In Akbar's time the site was occupied by a small village
of stonecutters and was the home of Shaikh Salim Chishti,
a Muslim astrologer and Sufi Saint. In 1568 Akbar
visited the Shaikh to ask for the birth of an heir.
The Shaikh replied that an heir would be born soon.
Sure enough, Akbar's wife gave birth to a boy on August
30, 1569. In gratitude, Akbar named the boy Salim
after the astrologer, and, two years later decided
to move the capital to Sikri.
The decision
to build a new capital at Sikri was dogged by more
than sentiment. It was a strategic location in Rajasthan
that put Akbar and his armies closer to the Gujarat
region--the next object of Akbar's expansionist dreams.
Gujarat was desirable because its coastal cities were
ideally suited to take advantage of the lucrative
trade to Arab lands.
The Construction
of the new capital began in earnest in 1571 and continued
for about fifteen years. During much of this time
Akbar made the area his home, but strangely, in 1586,
Akbar abandoned his new capital forever. The reasons
are not entirely clear, but the most plausible explanation
is that Akbar needed to move his base of operations
to wage the war against Kabul, which he occupied in
1585, and Kandahar, which fell in 1595.
The city was
used only sparingly in the coming centuries after
Akbar's departure. In the early 17th century it became
the home of several queen mothers. In 1619 Emperor
Jahangir camped here for three months while a plague
raged in nearby Agra. Ninety years later, the city
was refurbished to host the coronation of Muhammad
Shah (1709-48). After that, the city was largely abandoned
until Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India for the British
from 1898 to 1905, sponspored an archaeological survey
and restoration efforts.
At present
the city has become one of the chief tourist attractions
of India. However, it is impossible to capture in
pictures a single iconic image of the city, in the
way that the Taj Mahal can be framed in its totality
in the viewfinder of any camera. Fatehpur Sikri is
so large and decentralized that the city can only
be experienced as a series of changing surroundings
as one travels from courtyard to courtyard. There
are no broad boulevards or landmark buildings that
can be constantly kept in view when experiencing the
city. At Fatehpur Sikri, there are very few buildings
that can be seen from all four sides in isolation--among
them the Diwan-i-Khas and the Sonakra Makan. Most
buildings are fused together in such a way that there
are a multitude of routes to reach any point. It is
almost if the figure-ground of a modern city is reversed:
open spaces are non-continuous islands in a network
of buildings that flow together like streets.
