Brindraban
Brindaban or Vrindavan or Brindraban is presently situated in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh in India. This town has no political history but according to tradition it was the place where Lord Krishna passed most of his youth and with his consort Radha. It is visited annually by thousands of Hindu pilgrims from distant part of India and contains about 5000 temples of Hindu belief.
It is believed that the essence of Vrindavan was lost over time until the 16th century, when it was rediscovered by Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Through his divine spiritual power in 1515, Mahaprabhu was able to locate all the important places of Lord Krishna's pastimes in and around Vrindavana. According to Vaishnavites and particularly Krishna devotees, Vrindavan on Earth is a manifestation of the original Goloka Vrindavan Dham of Lord Krishna.
This town is also known as the Shelter City for Widows. By Hindu tradition, widows may not remarry but spend life towards spiritual liberation, and many of those abandon their families or having abandoned by their families on the death of their husband make their way here.
The town itself dates from the sixteenth century when several holy men from different parts of India settled here and four existing temples were built about that time. The finest of these temples is the temple of Govind Dev. It was built in 1590 by Raja Man Singh of Amber (Jaipur). It is a magnificent building of red sandstone, cruciform with a vaulted roof which was restored by the British Government during its rule. The development of various Vaishnava cults connected with the worship of Krishna has caused the growth of this place. Some large temples were erected in the nineteenth century, one of which was built on the model of Southern Indian Temple style (Dravidian) at a cost of 45 lakhs during that era. The town lies some distance from the Jamuna, surrounded by sacred groves of trees most of which contain shrines. Brindaban was a municipality since 1866. The town however depends on pilgrim traffic for its prosperity.
This town, the modern Vrindavan was not a princely state. The neighboring city of Brindraban including the city of Mathura was under the Jat control in the mid-18th century, although nominally subject to Awadh. After varying fortunes the area was passed to the East India Company in 1803-05 (i.e. AH1217-1220; VS1860-1862). The coins of this region display symbols of Awadh, Mughals, Delhi and Bharatpur, although according to Krause Mishler, it is clear that they were not mints of any of those authorities, especially in the British period