The Taj Mahal is a breathtaking white-marble mausoleum commissioned by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Located on the southern bank of the Yamuna River near Agra, India, the Taj Mahal took 22 years to build and finally reached completion in 1653.
This exquisite monument, considered one of the New Wonders of the World, astounds visitors with its symmetry, structural beauty, intricate calligraphy, inlaid gemstones, and magnificent garden. More than just a memorial dedicated to a spouse, the Taj Mahal was a declaration of lasting love from Shan Jahan to his departed soulmate.
The Love Story
In 1607, Shah Jahan, grandson of Akbar the Great, first met his beloved. At the time, he was not yet the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire. Sixteen-year-old Prince Khurram, as he was then called, flitted around the royal bazaar, flirting with the girls from high-ranking families that staffed the booths.
At one of these booths, Prince Khurram met Arjumand Banu Begum, the 15-year-old young woman whose father was soon to be the prime minister and whose aunt was married to Prince Khurram’s father. Although it was love at first sight, the two were not allowed to marry right away. Prince Khurram first had to marry Kandahari Begum. He later took a third wife as well.
On March 27, 1612, Prince Khurram and his beloved, to whom he gave the name Mumtaz Mahal (“chosen one of the palace”), were married. Mumtaz Mahal was beautiful, smart, and tender-hearted. The public was enamored with her, largely because she cared for the people. She diligently made lists of widows and orphans to ensure they received food and money. The couple had 14 children together but only seven lived past infancy. The birth of the 14th child killed Mumtaz Mahal.
The Death of Mumtaz Mahal
In 1631, three years into Shah Jahan’s reign, a rebellion led by Khan Jahan Lodi was underway. Shah Jahan took his military out to the Deccan, about 400 miles from Agra, to crush the usurper.
As usual, Mumtaz Mahal accompanied Shah Jahan’s side despite being heavily pregnant. On June 16, 1631, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl in an elaborately decorated tent in the middle of the encampment. At first, all seemed well, but Mumtaz Mahal was dying.
The moment Shah Jahan received word of his wife’s condition, he rushed to her side. Early in the morning on June 17, just one day after the birth of their daughter, Mumtaz Mahal died in her husband's arms. She was buried immediately, according to Islamic tradition, near the encampment at Burbanpur. Her body would not stay there long.
Reports say that in Shah Jahan’s anguish, he went to his tent and cried for eight days without ceasing. When he emerged, he was said to have aged considerably, sporting white hair and glasses.
Bringing Mumtaz Mahal Home
In December 1631, with the feud against Khan Jahan Lodi won, Shah Jahan asked that Mumtaz Mahal's body be dug up and brought 435 miles or 700 kilometers to Agra. Her return was a grand procession with thousands of soldiers accompanying her body and mourners lining the route.
When the remains of Mumtaz Mahal reached Agra on January 8, 1632, they were temporarily buried on land donated by nobleman Raja Jai Singh, near where the Taj Mahal would be built.
Plans for the Taj Mahal
Shah Jahan, filled with grief, poured his emotion into designing an elaborate and expensive mausoleum grander than any other. It was also unique because it was the first large mausoleum dedicated to a woman.
Although we know of no primary architect for the Taj Mahal, it's believed that Shah Jahan, passionate about architecture himself, worked on the plans directly with the input and aid of a number of the best architects of his time. The intention was for the Taj Mahal, “the crown of the region”, to represent Heaven, Jannah, on Earth. Shah Jahan spared no expense in making this happen.
Building the Taj Mahal
The Mughal Empire was one of the richest empires in the world at the time of Shah Jahan's reign, and this meant that he had the resources to make this monument incomparably grand. But though he wanted it to be breathtaking, he also wanted it erected quickly.
To speed up the production, an estimated 20,000 workers were brought in and housed nearby in a town built especially for them called Mumtazabad. Both skilled and unskilled craftsmen were contracted.
Builders first worked on the foundation and then the giant, 624-foot-long plinth or base, which would become the base of the Taj Mahal building and the pair of matching red sandstone buildings that would flank it, the mosque and guest house.
The Taj Mahal, sitting on a second plinth, was to be an octagonal structure constructed of marble-covered brick. As is the case for most large projects, the builders created a scaffolding to build higher. Their choice of bricks for this scaffolding was unusual and remains perplexing to historians.
Marble
White marble is one of the most striking and prominent features of the Taj Mahal. The marble used was quarried in Makrana, 200 miles away. Reportedly, it took 1,000 elephants and an untold number of oxen to drag the extremely heavy marble to the building site.
A giant, 10-mile-long earthen ramp was built for the massive marble pieces to reach higher spaces of the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is topped with a huge double-shelled dome that stretches 240 feet and is also covered in white marble. Four thin, white marble minarets stand tall at the corners of the second plinth and surround the mausoleum.
Calligraphy and Inlaid Flowers
Most pictures of the Taj Mahal show only a large white building. Though lovely, this image doesn't do the structure justice. These photos leave out many intricacies that make the Taj Mahal astoundingly feminine and opulent.
Passages from the Quran or Koran (the holy book of Islam) written in calligraphy appear on the mosque, guest house, and large main gate at the southern end of the complex. Shah Jahan hired master calligrapher Amanat Khan to work on these inlaid verses.
Masterfully done, the finished verses from the Quran are inlaid with black marble. They are a stately yet soft feature of the building. Although made of stone, the curves mimic real handwriting. The 22 passages from the Quran are said to have been chosen by Amanat Khan himself. Interestingly, Amanat Khan was the only person Shah Jahan allowed to sign his work on the Taj Mahal.
The delicate inlaid flowers throughout the Taj Mahal complex are almost more impressive than the calligraphy. In a process known as parchin kari, highly-skilled stone cutters carved intricate floral designs into the white marble and then inlaid these with precious and semi-precious stones to form interwoven vines and flowers.
There are 43 kinds of precious and semi-precious stones—sourced from around the world—used for these flowers, including lapis lazuli from Sri Lanka, jade from China, malachite from Russia, and turquoise from Tibet.
The Garden
Islam holds the image of Paradise as a garden. Thus, the garden at the Taj Mahal was an integral part of making it Heaven on Earth.
The Taj Mahal’s garden, situated south of the mausoleum, has four quadrants. These are divided by four “rivers” of water (another important Islamic image of Paradise) that gather in a central pool. The Yamuna River filled these gardens and rivers via a complex underground water system. Unfortunately, no records remain to tell the exact plants in these gardens.
Shah Jahan's Death
Shah Jahan remained in deep mourning for two years and never fully healed after the death of his favorite wife. This gave Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan’s fourth son,Aurangzeb, the opportunity to successfully kill his three elder brothers and imprison his father.
After 30 years as emperor, Shah Jahan was usurped and placed in the luxurious Red Fort in Agra in 1658. Forbidden to leave but with most of his usual luxuries, Shah Jahan spent his final eight years gazing out a window at the Taj Mahal.
When Shah Jahan died on January 22, 1666, Aurangzeb had his father buried with Mumtaz Mahal in the crypt beneath the Taj Mahal. On the main floor of the Taj Mahal above the crypt now sits two cenotaphs (empty public tombs). The one in the center of the room belongs to Mumtaz Mahal and the one just to the west is for Shah Jahan.
Surrounding the cenotaphs is a delicately carved, lacy marble screen. Originally it had been a gold screen but Shah Jahan had that replaced so thieves would not feel tempted to steal it.
Destruction of the Taj Mahal
Shah Jahan was wealthy enough to support the Taj Mahal and its mighty maintenance costs, but over the centuries, the Mughal Empire lost its riches and the Taj Mahal fell into ruins.
By the 1800s, the British ousted the Mughals and took over India. The Taj Mahal was dissected for its beauty—the Britch cut gemstones from its walls, stole silver candlesticks and doors, and even tried to sell the white marble overseas. It was Lord Curzon, the British viceroy of India, who put and to this. Rather than looting the Taj Mahal, Curzon worked to restore it.
The Taj Mahal Now
The Taj Mahal has once again become a magnificent place with 2.5 million visitors each year. People can visit during the daytime and watch as the white marble appears to take on different hues throughout the day. Once a month, visitors have the opportunity to make a short visit during a full moon to see how the Taj Mahal seems to glow from the inside out in the moonlight.
The Taj Mahal was placed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1983, but this protection has not guaranteed its safety. It is now at the mercy of pollutants from nearby factories and excessive humidity from the breath of its visitors.
Sources
- DuTemple, Lesley A.The Taj Mahal. Lerner Publications Company, 2003.
- Harpur, James, and Jennifer Westwood.The Atlas of Legendary Places. 1st ed., Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989.
- Ingpen, Robert R., and Philip Wilkinson.Encyclopedia of Mysterious Places: The Life and Legends of Ancient Sites Around the World. Metro Books, 2000.