
Agra was the chosen city of the Mughal emperors during the early years. It was here that the founder of the dynasty, Babur, laid out the first formal Persian garden on the banks of the River Yamuna. Here, Akbar, his grandson, raised the towering ramparts of the great Red Fort. Within its walls, Jehangir built rose-red palaces, courts and gardens. Shahjahan embellished it with marbled mosques, palaces and pavilions of gem-inlaid white marble. Agra is globally renown as the city of the TajMahal, a monument of love and imagination, that represents India to the world.
The reign of Shahjahan from 1628 to 1658 was the golden age of Mughal architecture in India that produced a series of noble buildings. But, the most prominent and undoubtedly magnificent of all these was TajMahal built by him in the memory of his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal.
Architecturally, Tajmahal was the greatest peace of architecture that Mughals produced, but it is a natural growth from the tomb of Humayun and to a lesser extent from certain other, prominent is the Tomb of Itmad-ud-Daulah in Agra itself. But it is far superior to any of them in the dignity of its grouping and disposition, in the masterly contrast between the central dome and the slender minarets, in the chaste refinement and painstaking craftsmanship of its details, and above all in the splendor of its materials.


