Akbar died in 1605 and was buried at Sikandra, on the road that leaves Agra for Mathura and Delhi. His tomb is large, quiet and odd — a stack of red sandstone terraces with no dome on top — and it gets a small share of the visitors who crowd the Taj Mahal. If you have followed Akbar through Agra Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, this is where the story ends.
In this article
Who Built It
The tomb is generally said to have been planned and begun in Akbar's own lifetime, which was the custom, and it was completed under his son Jahangir in the years after his death. Jahangir writes in his memoirs of visiting the site and being dissatisfied with what had been built, and of ordering work redone.
The place takes its name from an earlier ruler: Sikandar Lodi, the Delhi sultan who made Agra his capital about a century before Akbar was buried here.
The Gateway
You enter from the south, through a gateway that many visitors remember better than the tomb itself. It is red sandstone, covered in bold geometric and floral inlay in white marble and coloured stone, with bands of calligraphy around the arch.
At its four corners stand four white marble minarets. Minarets used this way, as part of a tomb's composition, appear again a generation later at the Taj Mahal, and it is worth holding the two pictures side by side when you get there.
A Tomb Without a Dome
Beyond the gate a long causeway runs through a walled garden laid out in the four-part Mughal plan, with the tomb at the centre. The building rises in tiers, each smaller than the one below, the lower ones in red sandstone and edged with small pillared kiosks.
The top storey is white marble and open to the sky: a courtyard enclosed by carved screens, with a marble cenotaph in the middle. There is no dome over it. Whether one was ever intended is something historians have argued about, and you will hear guides state both answers as fact. Visitors are not always allowed up to the upper terraces, so do not count on seeing that courtyard.
The Burial Chamber
The grave itself is at ground level, reached by a sloping passage from a vestibule whose ceiling is richly painted and gilded. The chamber at the end of it is the opposite: high, dim and almost bare, with a plain tomb in the middle.
The plainness is partly the result of damage. In the late seventeenth century, during Aurangzeb's reign, Jat rebels attacked and plundered the tomb. Much of the repair you see today dates from the British period, when the monument was restored in the time of Lord Curzon.
Deer in the Garden
The garden is as much a reason to come as the building. Blackbuck graze on the lawns on either side of the causeway, along with langurs, monkeys and peafowl, and the animals are used to people walking past.
That makes Sikandra one of the easier monuments to visit with children. Keep food out of sight, and do not feed the monkeys.
Mariam's Tomb, Nearby
A short way from Akbar's tomb is the tomb of Mariam-uz-Zamani, Akbar's wife and the mother of Jahangir. It is a smaller sandstone building in a garden of its own, and it sees very few visitors. If you have a car waiting and half an hour in hand, it is a calm addition.
Planning the Visit
Sikandra is on the Delhi side of Agra, so it is most easily seen on the way into or out of the city by road rather than as a separate trip. Morning is cooler and the light on the gateway is good. An hour to an hour and a half is enough for the gateway, the garden and the tomb.
This is an Archaeological Survey of India monument. Opening hours and ticket prices are set by the ASI and change, so check the official ASI site rather than a figure quoted in an article. For what else to put in the same day, see Agra's quieter monuments and the guide to Fatehpur Sikri, the city Akbar built and left. Tajnuma, our pure vegetarian Mughlai restaurant, is across town on Fatehabad Road.
