A HINDU AND JAIN PILGRIMAGE CENTER (UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE)
Fatehpur Sikri, which Akbar established as his capital and is now a World Heritage site, was once a “flourishing trade and Jain pilgrimage centre”.
Basing his arguments on the excavations by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1999- 2000 at the Chabeli Tila, senior Agra journalist Bhanu Pratap Singh said the antique pieces, statues, and structures all point to a lost “culture and religious site,” more than 1,000 years ago. “The excavations yielded a rich crop of Jain statues, hundreds of them, including the foundation stone of a temple with the date. The statues were a thousand years old of Bhagwan Adi Nath, Bhagwan Rishabh Nath, Bhagwan Mahavir and Jain Yakshinis,
Sikri existed much before Akbar. The excavations have clearly established this fact.” D.V. Sharma, former superintending archeologist of the ASI in Agra, who supervised the excavations, said: “We found scores of damaged statues piled up, and with dates, also a These are now lying in the guest house at Fatehpur Sikri. They should have gone ahead with the excavations and engaged historians to research on the subject.”
Fatehpur Sikri area was under the Sikarwar Rajputs, who had many structures and palaces, including a fort and temples, which were either demolished or suitably modified by the Mughals and before them by the Muslim rulers. Fatehpur Sikri was earlier Vijay Pur, according to the ASI’s D.V. Sharma.
This historical city is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the prime tourist attractions in Agra.
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