Fatehpur Sikri, that Mughal emperor Akbar establishedas his capital and is now a World Heritage site 32 km from here, was once a"flourishing trade and Jain pilgrimage centre", a new book says.
Basing his arguments on the excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India(ASI) in 1999-2000 at the Chabeli Tila, senior Agra journalist Bhanu PratapSingh 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 athousand years old of Bhagwan Adi Nath, Bhagwan Rishabh Nath, Bhagwan Mahavirand Jain Yakshinis," said Swarup Chandra Jain, senior leader of the Jaincommunity. The Jains comprise about 0.4 percent of India's population of 1.2billion and are a generally religious, prosperous and literate community.
Historian Sugam Anand said: "The findings should have led to seriousresearch, but that was not done. You need time and resources. Definitely beforeAkbar built his capital in Fatehpur Sikri, there is proof of habitation, oftemples and commercial centres. The open space on the ridge was used by Akbarto build his capital. But we still need a lot of research."
The statues and artefacts discovered buried in a pond have been kept in a guesthouse in Fatehpur Sikri by the ASI.
Talking to IANS, Bhanu Pratap Singh, the author of "Jain Dharm Ka PramukhKendra Tha Fatehpur Sikri," said: "Sikri existed much before Akbar.The excavations have clearly established this fact."
D.V. Sharma, former superintending archaeologist of the ASI in Agra, whosupervised the excavations, told IANS: "We found scores of damaged statuespiled up, and with dates, also a manuscript. These are now lying in the guesthouse at Fatehpur Sikri. They should have gone ahead with the excavations andengaged historians to research on the subject."
"My book on Fatehpur Sikri excavations is there in the ASI library withcomplete details of the findings which unmistakably point to a flourishingtrade and pilgrimage centre of both the Jains and the Sikarwars. Akbar built afew structures and modified others that were already there. Who demolished the templesand the statues is a subject which further research alone can establish,"Sharma added.
The ASI, for reasons known only to itself, abruptly stopped excavations atFatehpur Sikri. "Had they pursued and dug up all the mounds, startlingrevelations would have been made that would have changed the course of ourhistorical understanding," Bhanu Pratap Singh claimed.
Prior to the excavations in 1999, the ASI, in its various publications, hadcategorically stated: "Before Akbar's time, the higher ridge wasuninhabited, its former glory and present fame are the result of a sufi saint'schoice of it as a hermitage."
But ASI's documents do refer to Sikri village, "a site full of interestand promise for archaeological exploration".
Bhanu Pratap Singh said the Fatehpur Sikri area was under the Sikarwar Rajputs,who had many structures and palaces, including a fort and temples, which wereeither demolished or suitably modified by the Mughals and before them by theMuslim rulers. Fatehpur Sikri was earlier Vijay Pur, according to the ASI'sD.V. Sharma.
The Jain community in Agra is now planning to develop a museum in FatehpurSikri to tell the world "the real history of the area", according tophilanthropist Ashok Jain, a chartered accountant.