What was Agra called before it was named Agra? Scholars splitting hair

LUCKNOW: Agra based Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BAU) has a new task these days that has put its history department blowing dust off old books and digging deep into state and central libraries. District administration of the Taj Mahal city has asked the university to look for ‘verifiable evidence’ of Agra’s ancient names, if there were any.
The university, which received the letter from the administration a few days back, has handed over the task to its history department, which has already put research scholars and professors to work on the project.

“A letter from the administration was sent to our vicechancellor who forwarded it to the history department. As per the correspondence we have been asked to find verifiable and solid evidence on ancient names of Agra, if there were any,” said Prof Sugam Anand, head of BAU’s history department.
While no time limit has been set for the university to research on the topic, Prof Anand said that apart from members of the university, even individual scholars working on the city’s history, archaeologists and historians will be approached by BAU for the research.
“We will try our best to go through all resources present on the subject, be it state or central libraries or other reference points,” he added.
Prof Anand also said that it was not the first time the university was asked to research on a particular topic of interest. “We were asked by the central government through the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to research about Shivaji’s prison,” said the history department head.
“There are a number of theories tracing Agra’s origin, some are around Rishi Angira, some from the Mahabharat times Agravan. We need to verify these,” he said.
“If the request of finding ancient names for Agra has been brought up, there must be something to be found about it in ancient Indian history,” he added.