Mathura

Panoramic View Of Mathura Across Yamuna

Mathura / मथुरा

Krishna Birth Place, Mathura

Introduction

Mathura is a holy city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
It is located approximately 50 km north of Agra, and 150 km south of Delhi; about twenty kilometers from holy Vrindavan.
It is the administrative centre of Mathura District of Uttar Pradesh.
During the ancient period, this was an economic hub, located at the junction of some relatively important caravan routes.
Mathura is reputed to be the birthplace of Krishna at the centre of Braj, called Krishn Janm Bhumi, literary 'Krishna's birth place'.
The Keshav Dev temple was built in ancient times on the site of Krishna's legendary birthplace (an underground prison).
As per epic Mahabharata and per Bhagavata Purana, Mathura was the capital of the Shursen Kingdom, ruled by Kansa the maternal uncle of Krishna.
Mathura is also famous as one of the first two centres of production for images of the Buddha (the other being Gandhara in present-day Pakistan / Afghanistan).
Human images of the Buddha began to appear approximately at the same time (1st Century AD) in both centers but can be distinguished from one another as the Gandharan images are very clearly Greco-Roman in inspiration with the Buddha wearing wavy locks tucked up into a chignon and heavier toga-like robes whereas the Buddha figurines produced in Mathura more closely resemble some of the older male fertility gods and have shorter, curlier hair and lighter, more translucent robes.
Muttra is the location of the plantation where Jonathan Small worked in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Sign of Four". Though Muttra sounds like Mathura it is a fictitious place. Mathura never had indigo plantations around it and Mathura is nowhere near the Northwest Provinces.