MUTTRA or MATHURA, a city and district of British India in the Agra division of the United Provinces. The city is on the right bank of the Jumna, 3o m. above Agra ; pop. (1931), 64,029. It is an ancient town, mentioned by Fa Hien as a centre of Buddhism about A.D. 400; his successor Hstian Tsang, about 65o, states that it then contained twenty Buddhist monasteries and five Brahmanical temples. It was sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017-18; about 1500 Sultan Sikandar Lodi utterly destroyed all the Hindu shrines, temples and images; and in 1636 Shah Japan appointed a governor expressly to "stamp out idolatry." In 1669-70 Aurangzeb visited the city and continued the work of destruction. Muttra was again captured and plundered by Ahmad Shah with 25,000 Afghan cavalry in 1756. The town still forms a great centre of Hindu devotion, and large numbers of Vaishnavite pilgrims flock annually to the festivals. Temples and bathing-stairs line the river bank. The majority are modern, but the mosque of Aurangzeb, on a lofty site, dates from 1669. Most of the public buildings are of white stone, handsomely carved. There are an American mission, a Roman Catholic church, a museum of antiquities and a cantonment for a British cavalry regiment. Cotton, paper and pilgrims' charms are the chief articles of manufacture.
The DISTRICT OF MUTTRA has an area of 1,450 sq.m. It con sists of an irregular strip of territory lying on both sides of the Jumna. The general level is only broken at the south-western angle by low ranges of limestone hills. The eastern half consists
for the most part of a rich upland plain, abundantly irrigated by wells, rivers and canals, while the western portion, though rich in mythological association and antiquarian remains, is com paratively unfavoured by nature. The population in 1931 was 668,074. The principal crops are millet, pulse, cotton, wheat. barley and sugar cane. The eastern half of the district is watered by the Agra canal, which is navigable, and the western half by branches of the Ganges canal. The district is served by the Raj putana and other railways.
The central portion of Muttra district forms one of the most sacred spots in Hindu mythology. A circuit of 84 kos around Gokul and Brindaban bears the name of the Braj-Mandal, and carries with it many associations of earliest Aryan times. Here Krishna and his brother Balarama fed their cattle upon the plain; and numerous relics of antiquity in the towns of Muttra, Gobardhan, Gokul, Mahaban and Brindaban still attest the sanc tity with which this holy tract was invested. During the Buddhist period Muttra became a centre of the new faith. After the in vasion of Mahmud of Ghazni the city fell into insignificance till the reign of Akbar; and thenceforward its history merges in that of the Jats of Bharatpur, until it again acquired separate indi viduality under Suraj Mal in the middle of the 18th century. The whole of Muttra passed under British rule in 1804.