Agra  has  received  much  attention  from  a  variety of  scholars,  researchers, journalists and photo-journalists. It was sometimes in late Nineteenth Century that the city started attracting such attention. One of the first to describe the city were H. G. Keene who compiled his famous A Hand Book for Visitors to Agra and Its Neighbourhood in 1894 which has since been reprinted a number of times. He was followed  by  Muhammad  Latif  who  in  1896  wrote  his  Agra:  Historical  and Descriptive;  E.  B.  Havell  followed  them  in  1904  when  he  came  up  with  his  A Handbook to Agra and the Taj, Sikandra, Fatehput Sikri and Neighbourhood.  As their  names  suggest  they were  generally  guides  to  the  city  of  the  Taj.  They did contain much historical information as well. Latif also cited a number of epigraphs which he found adorning the various monuments.

Researches of a deeper kind were under taken by scholars like Carlylle and Cunningham whose reports were published in various forms in the journals of the Archaeological Survey of India Report, and Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report.  The first of these were edited by General Cunningham himself.

But then the common problem suffered by such kind of works, in spite of their  great  utility  otherwise,  was  that  they  focused  generally  either  on  minute details or an buildings of monumental importance. Like the first category, thus, a whole picture of the town could not be constructed from them.

Much  research,  analytical  and  in-depth  have  been  conducted  on  Agra  in near  recent  years.  Thus we have I.  P.  Gupta’s Urban Glimpses of Mughal Agra published in 1986 and K. K. Trivedi’s Agra Economic and Political Profile of a Munhall Suba published in 1998.  Both the works deal with the economy of the town and except in fragments, a total picture of the Mughal town is again missing.

A   large   number   of   research   papers   on   the   architecture   of   various monuments and gardens of Agra have also been recently published. Thus works of Ebba Koch, Catherine Asher, Wayne Begley, James L.  Wescoate Jr.  And others threw much crucial light but only an aspects and elements of architecture.
On the contrary, towns like Delhi and Fatehpur Sikri have received much better attention in this regard.  The  Shahjahanabad  of  Stephen  Blake  and  the Fatehpur  Sikri  of  S.  Athar  Abbas  Rizvi  are  quite  handy  to  reconstruct  both  the Mughal towns with ease.

It is with this view in mind that I took up research on Agra on the theme of
‘Mughal City of Agra and its Environs’. The work is based on physical surveys and explorations backed with literary, epigraphic and visual evidence. Thus help has been taken not only from the primary sources like contemporary Persian and English Chronicles, Travelogues and Memoirs but also from a number of drawings and  visual  reproductions  preserved  in  the  photography  and  visual  section  of  the British  Library,  London.  A  number  of  paintings  done  by  Seeta  Ram  and  other artists  now  in  the  British  Library  collection  have  thus  been  used  in  order  to understand  the  monuments  as  they  existed  prior  to  their  ‘renovation’  during  the present and the last century. I am thankful to my supervisor for lending me some of them from his collection.

Further, a number of exploratory trips and surveys were conducted over a period of six years to physically verify the remains.  Extensive survey was conducted in the Tajganj area in order to explore the surviving physical remains there.

One recent work which has helped me much is the Complete Taj and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra, published in 2006. This monumental work covers a  large  part  of  the  Mughal  city  and  emphasizes  on,  as  the  title  suggests,  on  the riverfront. However the other portions of the city are not dealt with.

This research work makes an attempt to compose a ‘physical picture’ of the city and discuss its lay-out. It is an attempt to understand a typical Mughal City which was not synthetic like those of Sikri and Shahjahanabad. It was not a result of the fancy of a person but a result of many rulers and those who inhabited it. It is the study of a vibrant Mughal Agra.