Dara Shikhoh History

Dara Shikhoh was the eldest son of Shahjahan and Mumtaz Mahal. He was born in 1615 A.D and died in 1659 A.D. He was very close to the heart of Shahjahan and was nick named as Buland Iqbal. In the war of succession, Dara was defeated by Aurangzeb and was killed. He was later burred in the Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. The libraries were put on fire under the orders of Aurangzeb.

During the mughal era library was an important place for the pursuit of scholarly wisdom and study of languages, theology and philosophy. Dara Shikhoh a lenient open minded prince established big set up for libraries in Delhi and Agra. He was a great scholar of Persian, Sanskrit and Urdu. He got many Indian legends translated into Persian. He got Upanishads translated by his team in Agra in his Haveli he set up a large library. This area falls into present Motiganj Area. Later on while British took over the Haveli, they converted this place into the Town Hall.

The library building does not have a single book now and all the nooks have been sent to Patna, Rampur and Panipat libraries.

Presently this library building houses a municipal school. It is also known for an incident when Amar Singh Rothore the Marwar Prince slew Salawat Khan with his chapter. At the sometime he was attracted by Satiullah Khan and Syed Khan and this made Amar Singh killed the building has witnessed the speeches of Indian leaders such as Moti Lal Nehru, Jawahar Lal Nehru during Indian Freedom struggle.