Relevance: Mains: G.S paper I: History: Indian Heritage and culture
Why in news?
- The government of Uttar Pradesh may be planning to change the name of Agra to Agravan.
- The Department of History at the Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Agra has been asked to examine whether the city was known by any other name in ancient times.
About:
- The move was initiated after some local people wrote a post on UP government’s Stamp and Registration website demanding to rename Agra. There is no well known documented evidence that Agra was known by a different name in the past.
- The Yogi Adityanath government in U.P. has changed the name of Allahabad to Prayagraj, of Mughalsarai Junction railway station to Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction, and of Faizabad district to Ayodhya.
Timeline of Agra:
- The Greek astronomer, mathematician and geographer Claudius Ptolemy who lived in the 2nd century AD in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, is believed to be the first person to refer to the city of “Agra” in his well known work ‘Geographia’ (The Geography).
- A UP government website says: “It is generally accepted that Agra was both an ancient city from the times of the Mahabharata and yet nevertheless Sultan Sikandar Lodi, the Muslim ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, founded Agra in the year 1504.”
- The “golden age” of the city began with the Mughals, when it was known as Akbarabad. It served as the capital of the Delhi Sultanate in the early 16th century.
- After the decline of the Mughal Empire, the city came under the influence of the Marathas, and began to be called Agra.