Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Agra

​ ​28(5 AGRA It is bounded on the N. by the district of Mathurd; on theE. by the Mainpuri and Etdwah districts; on the S. by the Gwalior territory and the Dholpur state ; and on the W. by the Bhartpur territory. Its area in 1872 was returned at 1873 square miles, and its population at 1,094,184 souls. The general appearance of the district is that com mon to the Doab, a level plain intersected by watercourses (nalas) and ravines. The only hills are the sandstone eleva tions in the west and south-west of the district. The prin cipal rivers are the Jamnd, Chambal, Uttangan, and Khari. The Jamnd intersects the district, cutting off the sub divisions of Itmadpur and Firozdbdd ; and a branch of the Aligarh division of the Ganges Canal passes through its northern parts. The general elevation of the district is estimated at from 650 to 700 feet above the level of the sea. The soil is sandy; many of the wells are brackish, and the local water supply is scanty. The failure of the periodical rains during the monsoon suffices to produce great scarcity, sometimes reaching the famine point. Only five towns are returned by the census as containing up wards of 5000 inhabitants, viz., Agra city (the capital of the district), population 149,008; Fathipur Sikrf, the site of Akbar s famous mosque and palace, 6878; Firozabdd, 14,255; Pindhdt, .6571; and Saimrd, 5704. There are three municipalities, viz., Agra city, Firozdbdd, and Fathi pur Sikrf. These muncipalities derive their local revenue from octroi and from property within the municipal limits. The total municipal income and its incidence per head of the population are as follows : Agra city, municipal income, 15,441, incidence per head, 2s. Ofd. ; Firozabad. 724 Is. per head; Fathipur Sikri, 366 Is. per head. The land revenue of the whole district was stated in 1871 at 162,882, and the gross revenue at 660,526. A scheme of rural instruction by means of indigenous schools was introduced in 1848. In 1871-72 there were 431 schools in the district, attended by 10,823 pupils, of whom 8820 were Hindus, 1293 Mahometans, and 710 of other deno minations. The educational establishments within the city will be described below. The police force consisted of 1358 regular police in 1871, equal to one man to every 1*37 square miles of area, or one to every 805 inhabitants; and a village watch or rural constabulary of 1921 men, being one man to every - 97 square miles of area, or one to every 570 inhabitants. The chief crimes of the district, in common with the rest of the Doab, are burglary and theft. AGRA CITY, situated on the banks of the Jamnd river, in 27 10 N. lat., and 78 5 E. long., is the head-quarters of the division and capital of the district. Formerly it was the provincial capital also, but since the mutiny the seat of government has been removed from Agra to Allahabad. The city, which is about 4 miles in length by 3 in breadth, sweeps along the banks of the river in a semicircle. The principal thoroughfares are a fine broad street intersecting the town from north to south; and the Strand, which runs along the banks of the river for a distance of 2 miles. This road measures 80 feet in width, and is said to have been constructed by the destitute poor during the famine of 1838. In 1846 the population of the city was esti mated at 66,000; in 1872 it was ascertained to be 149,000. The conservancy and improvement of the town are in the hands of a municipal committee, which derives its funds principally from octroi duties. In 1871-72, the municipal income was returned as follows: Octroi duties, 13,587; miscellaneous receipts, such as rent from land belonging to the municipality, &c., 1854 total, 15,441. The details of municipal expenditure were as follow : Establishment and cost of collection, 1667, 12s.; police, 4041, 12s.; conservancy, 1749, 12s.; lighting, 672, 14s.; watering, 255, 10s.; original works, 3561, 16s.; repairs, 1429, 2s.; education, 120; vaccination, 36, 6s.; dispensary, 360; charities, 240; grants to cantonments, museum, &c., 1465, 2s. total, 15,599, 6s. The principal educational establishment in Agra is the Government College, a hand some building, situated in the civil lines a short distance from the town. It was established in 1820; in 1872 it contained 385 pupils. The other chief schools are the St John s College, established by the Church Missionary Society in 1854; the Victoria College, established in 1862; and St Peter s Catholic College. These three colleges in 1872 had 643 pupils on their rolls. There is also a medical college, founded in 1853. The total number of students admitted into it during the sixteen years from 1855 to 1870 inclusive, was 1168, of whom 235 passed the pre scribed examination and received appointments in the government medical service. The Agra fort has a very imposing appearance, but is of no great strength. It occu pies a large space of ground on the banks of the river, enclosed by high walls and towers of red stone. The fortress was constructed by the Emperor Akbar in the latter part of the 16th century, and exceeds a mile in circuit. In 1803 the place was held by the Marhattds; but being invested by Lord Lake s army, it surrendered after a day s bombardment. During the mutiny of 1857 it formed a place of refuge for the European and Christian community of Agra, and was threatened by the insurgent sepoys. The buildings of most note within the walls of the fort are the palace and hall of audience of Shdh JaMn, and the Moti Masjid, or " Pearl Mosque." " In the centre of the palace," says Mr Fergusson in his History of Architecture, vol. ii., pp. 699-700, "is a great court 500 feet by 370, siirrounded by arcades, and approached at the opposite ends through a succession of beautiful courts opening into one another by gateways of great magnificence. On one side of this court is the great hall of the palace, the Diwani-Khas, 208 feet by 76, supported by three ranges of arcades of exquisite beauty. It is open on three sides, and with a niche for the throne at the back. This hall is now used as an arsenal. Behind it are two smaller courts, the one containing the Diwani-Am or hall of private audience, the other the harem. The hall in the former is one of the most elegant of Shah Jahan s buildings, being wholly of white marble- inlaid with precious stones, and the design of the whole being in the best style of his reign." The Mod Masjid or Pearl Mosque is the most elegant mosque of Indian-Mahometan architecture. Mr Fergus- son describes it as follows: " Its dimensions are considerable, being externally 235 feet east and west, by 190 feet north and south, and the courtyard 155 feet square. The mass is also considerable, as the whole is raised on a terrace of artificial construction, by the aid of which it stands well out from the surrounding buildings of the fort. Its chief beauty consists in its courtyard, which is wholly of white marble from the pavement to the summit of its domes. In design it somewhat resembles the great Dehli mosque, except that the minarets are omitted, and the side gateways are only recesses. The western part, or mosque properly so called, is of white marble inside and out ; and, except an inscription from the Kuran inlaid with black marble as a frieze, has no ornament whatever beyond the lines of its own graceful architecture." Agra, however, is even more famous for the Taj-Mahal, a splendid mausoleum built by the Emperor Shah JahAn for the remains of his favourite wife, Mumtdzd Mahal, and where he himself is also buried. The building is of white marble, with four tall minarets of the same material, one at each corner. The whole rises from an elevated marble terrace. The following account is extracted from Mr Fergusson s History of Architecture, pp. 692-694: "The enclosure, including the gardens and outer court, is a parallelogram of 1860 feet by more than 1000 feet. The outer court, surrounded by arcades and adorned by four gateways, forms an oblong, occupying in length the whole breadth of the inclosure, by about 450 feet in depth. The principal gateway, measuring 110 feet by 140, leads from the court to the gardens, which, with their marble canals and fountains and cypress trees, are almost as beauti ful as the tomb itself. The tomb stands on a raised platform 18 feet high, faced with white marble, and is exactly 313 feet square. ​A G R A G K 287 At each corner of this terrace stands a minaret 133 feet in height, and of the most exquisite proportions more beautiful, perhaps, than any other in India. In the centre of the marble platform stands the mausoleum, a square of 186 feet, with the corners cut off to the extent of 33 feet 9 inches. The centre of this is occupied by the principal dome, 58 feet in diameter and 80 feet in height, under which is an inclosure formed by a screen of trellis-work of white marble, a chcf-d osuvre of elegance in Indian art. Within this stand the two tombs. These, however, as is usual in Indian sepulchres, are not the true tombs ; the bodies rest in a vault level with the surface of the ground, beneath plainer tombstones placed exactly underneath those in the hall above. In each angle of the building is a smaller dome of two storeys in height, 26 feet 8 inches in diameter, and connected by various passages and halls. The light to the central apartment is admitted only through double screens of white marble trellis- work of the most exquisite design, one on the outer and one on the inner face of the walls. In our climate this would produce nearly complete darkness ; but in India, and in a building wholly composed of white marble, this was required to temper the glare, which otherwise would have been intolerable. As it is, no words can express the chastened beauty of that central chnmber, seen in the soft gloom of the subdued light which reaches it through the distant and half-closed openings that surround it. "When used as a pleasure palace, it must have been the coolest and the loveliest of garden retreats ; and now that it is sacred to the dead, it is the most graceful and most impressive of the sepulchres of the world. This building is an early example of that system of inlaying with precious stones which became the great characteristic of the style of the Mughuls after the death of Akbar. All the span- drils of the Taj, all the. angles and more important architectural details, are heightened by being inlaid with precious stones, such as agates, bloodstones, jaspers, and the like. These are combined in wreaths, scrolls, and frets, as exquisite in design as they are beautiful in colour ; and, relieved by the pure white marble in which they are inlaid, they form the most beautiful and precious style of ornament ever adopted in architecture. It is lavishly bestowed on the tombs themselves and the screens that surround them, but more sparingly introduced on the mosque that forms one wing of the Taj, and on the fountains and surrounding buildings. The judgment, in deed, with which this style of ornament is apportioned to the various parts is almost as remarkable as the ornament itself, and conveys a high idea of the taste and skill of the Indian architects of this age." Tavernicr, in his Travels (vol. iii., p. 94), mentions that 20,000 workmen were incessantly employed on this work during a period of twenty-two years. The tomb of the Emperor Akbar is contained in a splendid mausoleum at Sikandra, a suburb of Agra city. AGRAM, or ZAGRAB, the capital of the Austrian pro vince of Croatia, is finely situated on a hill near the banks of the Save, in 45 49 N. lat. and 10 1 E. long., 160 miles south of Vienna. It is the seat of the governor of Slavonia and Croatia, of a bishop, of the courts of justice, and of the meetings of the provincial diet. Agram is divided into three parts, called the upper and lower towns, and the town of the bishop. It has a lyceum, library, museum, gymnasium, an ancient cathedral, and a large library. Some silk and porcelain are manufactured, and a brisk trade is carried on in grain, potash, tobacco, and honey. Population in 1869, 19,857. AGRARIAN LAWS (Leges Agrarioc), when used in the most extended signification of the term, are laws for the distribution and regulation of property in land. The his tory of these enactments is not only important as explana tory of the constitution of the ancient republics, but is rendered highly interesting by the conflicting opinions which have been entertained respecting their object and operation. It seems to have been a notion generally entertained in the ancient world that every citizen of a country should be a landholder; and that the territory of a state, so far as it was not left uninclosed or reserved for public purposes, should be divided in equal portions among the citizens. Such a distribution of public land seems to have been acted upon as a recognised principle from the earliest period to which existing historical records extend. Hence we find the Almighty giving express instructions to Moses as to the manner in which the land of Canaan was to be portioned out among the Hebrews (Num. xxxiii. 54), and naming the persons to whom the division was to be entrusted (Num. xxxiv. 16-18). A division of the land was accordingly made, and the portion assigned to each man became his inalienable property, and descended in perpetuity to his heirs and successors. By the law of Jubilee, all lands were restored free of encumbrances on the recurrence of the "year of release;" so that, though a man s estate might, in the interval, have been repeatedly gold or alienated, yet on the return of the fiftieth year it reverted to the heirs of the original possessor (Levit. xxv. 10). In the republics of ancient Greece, and also in the Grecian colonies, a similar principle of division of land prevailed (Thuc. v. 4, Herod, iv. 159). Lycurgus is represented by Plutarch (Lyciir.} as redividing the whole territory of Laconia into 39,000 parcels, of which 9000 were assigned in equal lots to as many Spartan families, and 30,000, also in equal lots, to their free subjects; and although this statement is not borne out by any of the early Greek historians, and is even incon sistent with the assertion of Aristotle (Polit. ii. 4), yet it ia valuable as recognising the principle of the division of the public lands. (See Thirl wall s Hist, of Greece, chap, viii., and Grote s Hist, of Greece, part ii. chap, vi., with the authorities there quoted.) It was long a prevalent and undisputed opinion that the territories of the Hebrews, and of the republics of ancient Greece, were divided into equal portions, and that the object of such a distribution was to maintain a state of equality among all the members of the community. This, however, does not appear to be consistent with the dis tinctions of rank which we find admitted in Scripture (Josh, ix. 15; xxii. 14; 1 Sam. ix. 21, &c., &c.); and from a remark of Thucydides (i. 6), taken in connection with the statement of Aristotle (Polit. ii. 9), it may be legitimately inferred that property did not continue to be equally dis tributed at Lacedaemon. Distinctions of rank are clearly recognised in the legislation of Solon. Aristotle, in the Second Book of his Politics (chap, vi., &c.), explains the constitutions of several of the ancient republics, and endea vours to show how the population is to be accommodated to this equal division of land; but it would be foreign to our object to review his arguments. It may be sufficient to remark that such an attempt to arrest the progress of enterprise is altogether inconsistent with the spirit of liberty which gave life and energy to the ancient republics; and that, though it might have been carried into effect under the despotism of Persia or the predominant rule of the kings of Macedonia, it was entirely at variance with the freedom of opinion which prevailed in Greece, and the stubborn resistance to control which animated the Romans after the expulsion of the kings. But granting that such a policy had been practicable, it would have been highly inexpedient. The ignorant Hindu might remain satisfied with the caste which nature had transmitted to him through successive generations, because his progenitors had been prevented from emerging from their obscurity; but the citizens of Greece and Italy, being themselves constituent members of the body politic, and not ignorant of the power thereby conferred on them, could not have been kept in check by the same principle of fear. Such an attempt, moreover, to prevent the acquisition of property would have obstructed the advancement of the arts of civilised life, would have extinguished those feelings of patriotism which led the Greeks so often to hazard their lives in defence of their country, and, by engendering discontent and exciting internal commotions, would have made them an easy prey to their enemies. The expression Agrarian Laws, however, is more com monly applied to the enactments among the Romans for the management of the public domains (ager publicus) ; and to an account of these the remainder of our space must be devoted. It is a singular fact that, while almost every other