Agra

From Jatland Wiki

Agra district map

Agra (आगरा) is a city in Uttar Pradesh. It was founded by Agre clan of Jats.

It finds mention in the epic Mahabharata where it was called Agrevaṇa (अग्रेवण). Monier Williams interprets it as 'the border of the forest'.^[1] . But it is not the correct interpretation. This area was inhabited by the Agre clan of the Jats and hence its meaning is 'the forest of Agre people'. Ptolemy, the famous second century A.D. geographer, marked it on his map of the world as Agra. ^[2]

Legend ascribes the founding of the city to Rājā Badal Singh (around 1475), whose fort, Badalgarh, stood on or near the site of the present Fort. However, the 11th century Persian poet Mas'ūd Sa'd Salmān writes of a desperate assault on the fortress of Agra, then held by the Shāhī King Jayapala, by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni.^[3] Sultan Sikandar Lodhī was the first to move his capital from Delhi to Agra in the year 1506; he died in 1517 and his son Ibrāhīm Lodhī remained in power there for nine more years, finally being defeated at the Battle of Panipat in 1526.^[4] It achieved fame as the capital of the Mughal emperors from 1526 to 1658 and remains a major tourist destination because of its many splendid Mughal-era buildings, most notably the Tāj Mahal, Agra Fort and Fatehpūr Sikrī, all three of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.