MUTTRA or Mathura, in lat. 27° 30' 13" N., and long. 77° 43' 45" E., the headquarters town of a district in the N.W. Provinces of British India. The town is on the right or western bank of the Jumna. The district comprises an irregular strip of territory lying on either side of the river. The central portion of the, district for 84 cos around Gokal and Brindaban is called Brii Malicia It is one of the most sacred spots in the mythology of the Hindus of the earliest Aryan times, connected with the towns of Govardhan, Gokal, Mahaban, - and Briudabau. It was here that Krishna and Bala Rama pastured their herds. It is famous in the legendary history of Krishna as the stronghold of his enemy raja Kansa ; and it is noticed by Arrian, on the authority of Megas theues, as the capital of the Suraseni. Surasena was the grandfather of Krishna, and from him Krishna and his descendants, who held Mathura after the death of Kansa, were called the Suraseni. Arrian says the Suraseni possessed two great cities, Methora and Klisobora, and the navigable river Jobares flowed through their territories. Pliny names this river Jomanes, that is, the Jumna, and says that it passed between the towns of Methora and Klisobora. Ptolemy mentions only Mathura, under the form of Modura, 111ao6pa, to which he adds BEL'', that is, the city of the gods, or holy city.
The Greeks are said to have •seen the Hindus Worship Bacchus in ancient Methora. This may possibly refer to a Greek-clad statue, which, with his portly carcase, drunken lassitude, and vine wreathed forehead, is considered to be the well known wine-bibbing Silenus. The statue was discovered along with a Bacchic altar in 1836. Any Buddhist or Greek god has long ceased to be worshipped in Muttra. The most favourite local deity now is Krishna, who is adored in nearly all the temples, abounding in the town which owns his exclusive jurisdiction. Taking Muttra as a centre, the circle described by a radius of 84 miles would give the extent of ancient Vrij, the seat of all that was refined in Hinduism, and the language of which, Vrij-boli, was the purest and the most melodious dialect of India. In all Vrij the most classic spot is Brindaban. As the birth place of Krishna, Muttra is as sacred to the Vishnavites as Bethlehem is to the Christians. The most sacred spot in all Muttra is the Bisram ghat, where Krishna and Baldeo rested from their labours of slaying Kansa, and dragging his corpse to the river side. At the Bisramghat is annually
held a great bathing mela or assembly, called Jumna-ki-Burki, on which occasion the gathering of men from near and remote parts of India exceeds more than 100,000. To the Chowbay race the occasion proves a great harvest of gain. The pittances offered to the images of Krishna and Baldeo at the ghat sometimes amount to 30,000 or 40,000 rupees.
During the Buddhist period Muttra became a centre of that faith. In IIiweu Thsang's time there were only five Brahmanical temples in Muttra; in the middle of the 19th century there was only one Jain temple in Brindaban. Fa Hian and his companions halted at Muttra for a whole month, during which time the Buddhist clergy held a great assembly, and discoursed upon the law. After the meeting they proceeded to the stupa of Sariputra, to which they made an offering of all sorts of perfumes, and before which they kept lamps burning the whole night. In Hiwen Thsang's time the number of towers and monasteries was the same, but that of the monks had been reduced to 20G0. The king and his ministers were all zealous Buddhists. In the 7th century Muttra was the capital of a large kingdom, which is said to have been 5000 li, or 833 miles, in circuit. After the invasion of 31alimud of Ghazni, Muttra city fell into insigni ficance. During the 18th century the district was held by the Jat of Bhurtpur, but in 1757, during Ahmad Shah's invasion, Sirdar Jahan Khan plundered the city, and massacred all the inhabitants. The principal surviving edifices include the Sati-burj (or Tower of the Faithful Widow), built by raja Bhagwan Das in 1570. The city is surrounded by numbers of high mounds, the remains of extensive buildings, which, having been dug over for ages in search of bricks, are now mere heaps of brick-dust and broken bricks. Contiguous to Muttra are those great sandstone quarries, which for ages have furnished materials to the architects of Upper India for building the houses, shops, temples, and ghats of its principal cities. In 3futtra the ghats are light and graceful ; in Benares they are severe and simple.—Cunningham's Ancient Geo graphy of India, p. 373 ; Tr. of Hind. ii. p. 22.