JodockWorldTravel

While Ken visited Fatehpur Sikri Pam headed off to the Agra Fort.

The Agra Fort was the main residence where all of the early Mughal emperors lived. The Mughals are the people who built and ruled India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh from the early 16th Century to the mid-19th Century. This is where the Emperor who built the Taj Mahal lived with his family. At one time the Fort included 500 buildings and as many as 20,000 people a day would be on the grounds. In the evening most of those individuals would return to their homes outside the gates, leaving about 500 or so who lived here on a full-time basis. Only 30 of the original buildings remain today, and 75% of the Fort is still used by the Indian Army, so not all of those buildings are open to the public.

We were able to see the exterior of the building where the Emperor and his wives would have lived. We walked through the building that would have housed the apartments where the Emperor’s children would have lived, and we visited the courtyard where the people would come to air their grievances to the Emperor or make requests of him. Those granted an audience would share their complaint or request with the Prime Minister who would then stand on a platform and share the information with the Emperor, who was seated on a throne overlooking the courtyard. Windows were provided for the women to watch the proceedings from inside.

Emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, was born here and died here. He was very fond of the eldest of the four sons he had with Mumtaz Mahal and planned to give up the throne to him. Another of his sons wanted the throne for himself and killed all three of his brothers and declared his father unfit to rule so that he could have it. He put the Emperor under house arrest and kept him in his home at Agra Fort where the Emperor could see the Taj Mahal from his balcony. The Emperor died eight years later.