Fatehpur-Sikri

The fortress at Fatehpur was built by Akbar the Great when he moved his capital there to honour the holy man who had blessed him in order to have a son. We hired a car and driver to go out and see the fortress, which was abandoned shortly after it was built, due to water shortages (oops!).

The town is about 40 km from Agra, but it took an hour and a half to drive there, because we had to share the roads with: donkeys, cars, trucks, buses overloaded with people hanging off the doors and sitting on the roof, camels, buffalo, horses and carts, push carts, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles, etc. etc. I don’t think anyone used to driving on Canadian roads would make it here!

We started with a visit to the mosque complex. Akbar had built a shrine for the remains of the holy man, and had promised that all the holy man’s descendants would be buried close to him. There was a cemetery outside the building for the men and one inside for the women. The walls of the women’s cemetery were made of sandstone with small intricately-designed lattice work all through them. This is symbolic of the burkah that muslim women wear – you could see out from the cemetery, but you could not look in from the outside. Even today, the descendants of the holy man are buried here. Akbar had also built an underground tunnel all the way to Agra, so he could take safe passage there as he had enemies who would make the journey unsafe.

Next we went to the palace compound. Akbar believed that all religions were the same and, to make peace with the three main religions of India, he had 3 wives - a Hindu from Rajasthan, a Christian from Portugal and a Muslim from Turkey, not to mention the numerous concubines. He built separate palaces for each of his 3 wives according to their own desires, and included symbols of various religions in the carvings on the walls, doors, and windows. Akbar’s own resting area had a huge elevated stone bed (which would have been covered with thick carpets, blankets, and pillows) and the chamber was connected through a hallway to the harem. The floor of the rest area would have a pool of rose water so the concubine(s) would walk through the rose water on their way to visit the emperor.

Akbar also held public court, where he would make announcements and pass judgement on the guilty. Those guilty of particularly bad crimes would be brought before an elephant that was tied to a rock in the public garden, and the elephant would stomp them to death! Guess there wasn’t much capital crime during Akbar’s reign!

Parts of the palace compound were not open to tourists, but they looked very interesting from a distance. We even saw some people taking loads on donkeys through one of the gates. It made us appreciate a glimpse of what life may have been like here back in the 1600’s.

We returned to the hotel around 4 and got some home schooling in too. Now we have to get ready for our return to Delhi tomorrow and the trip to Mysore the next day.

NM