The Mughal Empire

The Agra Fort

The Agra Fort, located on the western bank of the river Yamuna in the city of Agra, is fortified palaces of the Mughal architecture tradition, with a history that extends from the pre-Mughal period to the reign of Shah Jahan in the mid-seventeenth century. The fort as it survives today is principally the work of Akbar, who reconstructed the existing fortifications in red sandstone between 1565 and 1573, and of his successors Jahangir and Shah Jahan, who added the principal marble buildings that constitute the most distinctive features of the inner precinct. The fort is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1983 as part of the “Agra Fort” inscription, and it is closely associated with the Taj Mahal, which lies about two and a half kilometres to the east.

Pre-Mughal History

The site of the Agra Fort has a history that extends well before the Mughal period. The earliest known fortification on the site was built by the Chauhan Rajputs in the early eleventh century, and the site was subsequently held by a succession of rulers, including the Delhi Sultanate, the Sharqi Sultanate of Jaunpur, the Lodi dynasty, and the Sur dynasty. The fort was captured by the Mughal emperor Babur in 1526, on the eve of the First Battle of Panipat, and the Mughal possession of the site was confirmed by Humayun’s brief occupation of the city in the 1530s. The pre-Mughal fortifications were substantially rebuilt by Akbar in the 1560s and 1570s, and the surviving fort is principally the work of the Mughal period.

Reconstruction by Akbar

Akbar reconstructed the fort in red sandstone between 1565 and 1573, transforming the pre-Mughal fortification into a substantial fortified palace that served as the principal residence of the imperial court for the next half century. The work involved the construction of the massive red sandstone walls, the principal gates, the audience halls, the residential buildings, the mosques, and the service buildings, and the project drew on the resources of the imperial workshop at a moment when the consolidation of Akbar’s authority had stabilised the dynasty’s finances.

The architect of the fort is not recorded with certainty, and the work is generally understood to have been the product of the imperial workshop as a whole. The construction of the fort involved a substantial labour force drawn from across the empire, and the work was carried out rapidly, with the principal buildings substantially complete by 1573.

The Red Sandstone Walls

The most distinctive feature of the fort is the massive red sandstone walls that enclose the complex. The walls, built of red sandstone quarried at Fatehpur Sikri and the surrounding region, rise to a height of about twenty metres and are faced with carved and inlaid ornament that is characteristic of the Akbar period. The walls extend for about two and a half kilometres around the complex, and they are pierced by a number of gates, of which the Delhi Gate, the Amar Singh Gate, and the Lahore Gate are the most important. The use of red sandstone as the principal material of the fort, and the contrast with the white marble of the inner buildings, has given the complex its distinctive visual character.

The Key Buildings

The fort contains a remarkable series of buildings, ranging from the audience halls of Akbar’s reign to the marble pavilions of Shah Jahan, and the buildings represent the principal surviving examples of the Mughal palaces tradition. The key buildings of the complex include the Diwan-i-Aam, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Moti Masjid, the Nagina Masjid, the Khas Mahal, the Shish Mahal, the Anguri Bagh, the Jahangir Mahal, the Akbar Mahal, and the Machchi Bhawan.

The Diwan-i-Aam, the public audience hall, is a large columned hall in the eastern part of the complex, where the emperor received the public and transacted the routine business of the empire. The Diwan-i-Khas, the private audience hall, is a smaller, more intimate space where the emperor received the principal officers of the state and the foreign envoys. The Moti Masjid, the “Pearl Mosque,” is a small but refined mosque in white marble that was built by Shah Jahan in the 1640s and 1650s, and it is one of the three Moti Masjids of the imperial tradition. The Nagina Masjid, the “Gem Mosque,” is a smaller mosque of white marble that served the private devotions of the emperor and the imperial household.

The Khas Mahal, the “Special Palace,” is the principal residence of Shah Jahan within the fort, consisting of a series of marble pavilions arranged around a courtyard overlooking the river. The Shish Mahal, the “Palace of Mirrors,” is a smaller residence decorated with mirror-work and stucco ornament that served as a more intimate imperial residence. The Anguri Bagh, the “Garden of Grapes,” is a charbagh garden of the four-part type that occupies the central part of the inner precinct and that provides a setting for the principal buildings. The Jahangir Mahal is a substantial palace in red sandstone built by Akbar for his son Jahangir, and it is buildings of the complex. The Machchi Bhawan is a large courtyard in the eastern part of the complex, surrounded by arcaded galleries, that served as a venue for imperial ceremonies and the display of the imperial household.

Shah Jahan’s Marble Pavilions

The most distinctive additions to the fort are the marble pavilions built by Shah Jahan in the 1630s, 1640s, and 1650s, which transformed the inner precinct into a marble palace of extraordinary refinement. The Khas Mahal, the Shish Mahal, the Moti Masjid, the Nagina Masjid, and the pavilions of the Anguri Bagh are all part of this later programme, and they represent the most refined statement of the Mughal architecture tradition in the field of palace design.

The use of white marble as the principal material of the inner precinct, in contrast to the red sandstone of the outer walls and the principal buildings of the Akbar period, is a distinctive feature of the design, and it is consistent with the broader shift from red sandstone to white marble that defined the architectural patronage of Shah Jahan.

Place Among Mughal Forts and UNESCO Status

The Agra Fort is one of the three principal fortified palaces of the Mughal architecture tradition, the others being the Red Fort in Delhi and the Lahore Fort. The three forts share a number of common features, including the use of red sandstone as the principal material of the walls, the integration of the audience halls, the residential buildings, the mosques, and the service buildings within a single fortified precinct, and the careful integration of the buildings with the surrounding landscape. The Agra Fort is the earliest of the three, and it served as the prototype for the later forts of the tradition. The fort is closely associated with the Taj Mahal, and the two monuments form a coherent architectural ensemble that defines the visual identity of the city of Agra.

The fort was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983, and it has been the subject of extensive restoration work in the post-Independence period. The restoration has addressed the structural damage inflicted during the period of British and post-Independence use, the conservation of the carved and inlaid ornament, and the development of a comprehensive site management plan. The fort is now a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India, and it is one of the most visited tourist sites in northern India.

For the broader context of the imperial building tradition, the Mughal architecture overview pillar offers a synthetic account, while the cluster page on Mughal palaces treats the related building type in greater depth. The Taj Mahal cluster page examines the most famous building of the Agra region, and the Akbar and Shah Jahan clusters provide the political and biographical context for the construction of the fort.

Sources

  • Catherine B. Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (1992), pp. 78–95.