In John Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, the city of Agra is shown to Adam, after his fall, as a future wonder of the world.

With the Mughal obsession for gardens and majestic buildings, it is no wonder that their cities seemed wonderful.

Agra itself had been developed into a riverfront garden city, with all the important and famous nobles having huge riverfront gardens and mansions. In her book, The Complete Taj Mahal, Ebba Koch names them along with a map. Some of the nobles who had mansions on the riverfront along the side of the Agra Fort were Mahabat Khan, Asaf Khan, Muqim Khan, Dara Shukoh and Man Singh.

When Mumtaz Mahal died and it was decided to bury her in Akbarabad, as Agra was known then, a search for the best place to build her mausoleum was undertaken. Her grieving husband had already decided to make her resting place a veritable paradise itself. A majestic and huge tomb was to be constructed. Since the structure would be very heavy, the architects took the decision to support it on large wooden slabs built over deep wells. This stabilised the sand and acted as augered piles. For this purpose, the position chosen was at a node in the River Yamuna, which seemed the most suitable. This plot of land belonged to Raja Man Singh, Akbar’s general who had marriage ties with the Mughals.

In 1631 AD, when Mumtaz Mahal died, the owner was Raja Jai Singh, Man Singh’s grandson.

Though Shah Jahan or Raja Jai Singh would not have anticipated a day when the property deeds of the Taj Mahal would be checked, thankfully, as the Mughals administration was very bureaucratic, thousands of documents were generated and preserved. Though many have been lost over the years, some still remain.

Given their fondness for recording their deeds and history, some of the Mughal emperors like Babur and Jahangir wrote their own memoirs, and others got official histories written by their court historians. Apart from these, many more contemporary accounts were written, which record every detail of the period. During the reign of Shah Jahan, too, many court histories were written. These were the Padshah Nama of Qazwini, The Padshah Nama of Abdul Hamid Lahori and Muhammad Waris, the Shah Jahan Nama of Muhammad Salih Kanbo.

These contemporary accounts form an important source of information regarding Shah Jahan’s reign, administration, conquests, and his buildings. Many later texts emerged in the 19^th and 20^th century which carried hearsay accounts, and can not be considered factual unless borne out by the ones written during Shah Jahan’s reign or immediately after.

The contemporary texts refer to the mausoleum that was built by him for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal as Rauza e Munnavara, or the Illuminated Tomb.

Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb by WE Begley and ZA Desai has compiled an anthology of these sources, and it was from this book that I realised how well-documented the building of the mausoleum was. I use these translations to present my arguments that the Taj Mahal was built on the land where Raja Jai Singh had a mansion and that there is no mention of any religious building on that land.

These historians mention that though Raja Jai Singh wanted to give it for free for the noble purpose, the emperor was unwilling, and gave another mansion loftier than the one he had acquired in lieu thereof.

Two books give details and a translation of the royal “farman” giving four “havelis” in lieu of Raja Jai Singh’s haveli. Yes, the word mentioned is “haveli”, or mansion.

Qazwini describes the tract of land on the southern side of Agra that had the qualities needed to be the final resting place of the one whose residence was paradise. Qazwini says it was formerly the word “khana”, or house of Raja Jai Singh.

He also mentions that though the Raja was willing to give it for free, Shah Jahan gave him a lofty house in lieu of it.

Lahori also describes a tract of land south of the city as being suitable for the queen’s resting place, and uses the word “manzil” or mansion of Raja Jai Singh. He also mentions the fact that though Raja Jai Singh was willing to give it for free, Shah Jahan gave a lofty mansion from the crown lands in exchange.

Muhammad Salih Kanbo writes that the emperor acquired a “heaven-like tract of land (sarzamin e bihist-ain)” which was situated on the south side of Agra and belonged to Raja Man Singh. Once again, the word manzil is used.

I found details and translation of the “farman” giving orders for the exchange to Raja Jai Singh in two books. One is Mughal Documents by prof SAI Tirmizi and the other is Begley and Desai’s Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb.

While prof Tirmizi gives the bare details, Begley and Desai have translated the “farman” in its entirety and have given all the details of endorsements and scrutiny that were given on the back, which were necessary before it could be admitted in the royal office.

Though the mansion was gifted immediately after the decision to bury Mumtaz Mahal in Agra was taken in 1631, the exchange of the additional/replacement four “havelis” took two years to affect, as the royal “farman” is dated December 28, 1633.

A certified contemporary copy of the “farman” dated 26 Jumada II 1043 AH, sixth regnal year [corresponding to December 28, 1633], is available in the Kapad Dwara collection in Jaipur City palace. The word used in the “farman” too is “haveli” (mansion).

“Be it known through this glorious farman marked by happiness, which has received the honor of issuance and the dignity of proclamation, that the mansions (haveli) detailed in the endorsement, together with their dependencies, which belong to the august crown property, have been offered to that pride of peers and vassal of the monarch of Islam, Raja Jai Singh, and are hereby handed over and transferred to his ownership- in exchange of the mansion (haveli) formerly belonging to Raja Man Singh, which that pride of the grandees willingly and voluntarily donated for the mausoleum of that Queen of the ladies of the world ….. Mumtaz Mahal Begum.” [Translation Begley and Desai]

There are other royal “farmans” addressed to Raja Jai Singh which deal with sending of marble from Makrana mines which were part of Raja Jai Singh’s estates.

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Pathhar ka ik bahisht yaheen Aagra mein hai.

It’s not me but the gaze of history that says this

There’s a paradise of stone in Agra for all to witness.”

— Abhishek Shukla

On June 16, 1631, when Mumtaz Mahal left this world for the next, Sa’ida Khan, known as Bebadal Khan, composed the following chronogram which gave the Hijri year of her death- 1040:

“Jaaye-i-Mumtaz Mahal jannat bad (May the abode of Mumtaz Mahal be paradise).”

The abode that he was referring to was heaven, but a grieving husband decided to make her resting place a heaven too.

As Abu Talib Kalim Kashani, Shah Jahan’s poet laureate, wrote:

“Upon her grave – may it be illumined until the Day of Resurrection!

The King of Kings constructed such an edifice

That since Destiny drew the plan of creation

It has not seen such an exalted building.”

(Translation Ebba Koch)

Indeed it was a fit mausoleum for a beloved wife. The best of master architects, calligraphers, embossers, stone carvers, craftsman and masons from Hindustan as well as Iraq, Turkey and Iran were gathered to create one of the wonders of the world. The best of building material, precious and semi-precious stones was gathered.

The style to be used was the one used previously in Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi known as the “Hasht Bihist”.

The Taj Mahal, a painting by Edwin Lord Weeks (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Hasht Bihist [eight heavens] is a Persian architectural term which refers to a specific type of floor plan whereby the plan is divided into eight chambers surrounding a domed central room. The allusion is to the eight levels of heaven and this plan was usually used for funerary monuments. These tombs were square or rectangular planned buildings divided into nine sections such that a central domed chamber is surrounded by eight elements.

Since paradise has rivers and gardens, the Mughal tombs are modelled on them too with the “Chahar Bagh” plan. These rivers signify abundance, mercy and blessings of God. All this imagery is supposed to help the soul of the dead man gain forgiveness and entry into paradise.

According to Amal-e-Salih, written by Shah Jahan’s official biographer Muhammad Salih Kanbo, the construction of the tomb began in January 1632. As many as 20,000 workers laboured for 20 years to complete this marble wonder. While contemporary documents call it Rauza e Munawwara [the Iluminated Tomb] or Rauza e Mutahhara [The Pure Tomb] the locals called it Taj Bibi ka Rauza. However, it became famous as Taj Mahal, perhaps an acronym for Mumtaz Mahal.

“Like nightingales we should weep in this garden

For smiles fade too quickly from the face

— Kanbo, Amal-e-Salih (translation Begley and Desai)

What is it about this mausoleum that attracts lakhs of visitors every year and generates around Rs 20 crore-Rs 22 crore as revenue for the state?

I have been visiting the Taj Mahal since I was a child and have never been able to lose that sense of awe as one enters the enormous, monumental southern gateway to find it framed inside. The feminine charm and delicate decoration make the mausoleum look like a white rose in full bloom. Perhaps that was intentional? Very apt calligraphic words inscribed on this gateway invite the reader into paradise.

Indeed it marks the “perfect moment” in the evolution of architecture in the Mughal period, according to famous historian, Percy Brown.

The first thing that strikes the visitor is the lofty, bulbous dome. It is indeed a fit crown for the empress who sleeps within. It was built under the supervision of Ismail Khan Afendi, who specialised in building the double dome, and had been called from Turkey.

After the first rapturous moment one moves in and is drawn by the water courses all built as per the paradisical plan to enhance the beauty of the mausoleum. Today, the pools are just full of water, but earlier there were silver fountains from which the water gushed out singing eulogies and lotus flowers bloomed in the pools.

“Nautch Girls emerging from the Taj Mahal”, by Edwin Lord Weeks (Credit: artnet.com)

The chief architect was Ustad Ahmed Lahauri also given the title of Nadir-e-Asr [the wonder of the Age]. He was also the architect of the Red Fort and Jama Masjid in Delhi.

The breathtaking calligraphy was done by Abdul Haq who was given the title of Amanat Khan. Inlaid jasper on white marble panels, bear verses from the Quran chosen apparently by Amanat Khan himself.

“O Soul, thou art at rest. Return to the Lord at peace with Him, and He at peace with you,” is the verse on the gateway.

If at the gateway the calligraphic verses refer to themes of judgement and paradisical rewards, the ones near the tomb itself talk of impending doomsday.

The plan of the tomb is an irregular octagon known as “Tarah-i-musamman-i-Baghdadi” and supervised by a master mason from Baghdad.

An inlay specialists came from Delhi to work on the monument. He had a plentiful of riches to work his magic as agates were brought from Yemen, cornelians from Arabia, amethyst from Persia, malachite from Russia, the turquoises from upper Tibet, diamonds from Central India, the onyxes from Deccan and garnets from Bundel Khand.

“They have inlaid flowers of stone in the marble

What they lack in smell they make up with colour.”

— Abu Talib Kalim Kashani (translation Ebba Koch)

Marble was brought from Makrana and of such a quality that it could take on the tint and hues of the sky itself. It has a dreamlike quality in the night and looks ethereal in the morning. The evening saw it suffused with blue and pink.

The night of the kartik purnima is a highlight in the tourist calendar. I witnessed it once many years ago and have never forgotten the experience when it indeed looked like a “teardrop” that hung on the face of time.

The rectangular plan of the complex is marked by its symmetry. Four graceful minarets on four corners of the tomb frame the beautiful dome.

If there’s a mosque on the western side, its jawab or answer is on the east in the form of a “mehman khana”. The entire width of the tomb is equal to the height, and the height of the central façade is equal to the dome.

The mixture of marble for the tomb and sandstone for the other buildings add to its charm, as the whole seems like a bouquet where the white rose is framed by the red flowers.

The ornamental gardens enhanced the incandescent beauty of the grave, almost as once floral jewellery must have added to the late empress’ charms.

It’s no wonder that this symbol of love and beauty is the most visited monument in India and has been included in the Seven Wonders of the World.

It is a building that could only have been built in India as a culmination of Indo-Islamic architecture and will forever bear witness to it.

As Shah Jahan’s court chronicler, Abdul Hamid Lahauri, wrote, “Verily our monuments will tell of us – long speak with mute eloquence [ba-zabaan e bizabaani].

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An inscription on the entrance is said to record the visit of Ahmad Lahori ( known simply as Ahmad Miamar) the architect of the Taj Mahal

The inscription of Ustad Ahmad Me’mār, the architect of Taj Mahal and Delhi Fort which he left behind when he came to visit Mandu in 1659

Hoshang Shah #Mandu

#TajMahal

Funeral of Shah Jahān,

18th-century painting

The British Library

On 15th May, 2015 I was visiting the Taj Mahal for perhaps the umpteenth time for I had lived near it as a teenager when I saw a banner. This was something new. It was a banner announcing the 360th urs of Emperor Shah Jahan.

And no wonder for I hear from Sarthak Malhotra who is researching on Taj Mahal that around a decade ago it was restarted.

Sarthak tells me that the chador ceremony starts from the tomb of Hazrat Bukhari a Sufi saint invited by Emperor Shah Jahan to take care of the empresses’grave. Then goes to a few other shrines finally coming to the Taj Mahal.

Ebba koch describes the annual urs held for Mumtaz Mahal Begum by Emperor Shah Jahan, so possibly as long as the Mughal Empire lasted, the urs of both the Emperor & Empress was celebrated & fell in disuse later.

Urs means wedding and is a term associated with the death anniversary of a Sufi for death is the Sufi’s ultimate aim : a union with with God.

I had not known that Emperor Shah Jahan was a Sufi. Later on I read that Kucha Chelan in Delhi was so named because his mureed or chela lived there.

I read in Maulvi Basheeruddin Ahmed’s book Waqiaat e Darul Hukumat Dehli that he was extremely religious and that is why he was the only one who qualified to lay the foundation stone of Jama Masjid in Delhi. He had offered all his prayers on time along with the superogatory prayers ( tahajjud) and kept all fasts.

Entry was free on the day of the urs. The lower chamber where the second set of cenotaph are housed in the Taj Mahal was open and we were allowed to go down. There were offerings of green chador, flowers and money on both the graves.

The bigger one on the left is of Emperor Shah Jahan while the smaller one in the middle is of Mumtaz Mahal Begum.

There was quite a lot of people

When I was a teenager I remember this level was open. Now I believe it’s only opened for the urs of the emperor.

This is about the only sign left that the Rauza e Munawwara was intended as a religious sphere and not a rendezvous for lovers.

Can be seen in this calligraphic panel in tomb chamber

Opinion: 30th September 2018

The Hindu

Imagining the Mahtab Bagh as it was supposed to be

The most visited monument in India is the Taj Mahal in Agra. Guides and locals tell you stories of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s love for his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, when they walk you up to the main chamber housing the cenotaphs of the emperor and his wife. As they walk you towards the back of the monument, where the Yamuna flows, they point across the bank and tell you in hushed tones that this was where Shah Jahan dreamed of a mausoleum in black marble for himself, but he was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb before he could build it. French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was the first to mention the story of a black Taj Mahal, and it caught the popular imagination in later centuries. However, archaeological excavations have found no evidence of any foundation on which such an edifice could have been built.

The emperor’s vision

I have also heard this story many times. Though I never believed it, I didn’t realise the importance of that piece of land across the Yamuna, known as Mahtab Bagh, till a friend, Roshna Kapadia, gifted me The Moonlit Garden: New Discoveries at the Taj Mahal, edited by Elizabeth B. Moynihan. This book describes the India-U.S. project undertaken by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, of which Moynihan was a key member, along with the Archaeological Survey of India. The researchers concluded that the Bagh’s proportions are similar to the Taj, and it is also aligned with the monument, which means that Shah Jahan had built it as a part of the main tomb complex.

Soon after the Taj Mahal was ready, Shah Jahan moved to the new city of Shahjahanabad in present-day Delhi, and possibly did not visit Agra for some years. Aurangzeb, who did visit Agra in 1652, said in a letter, which is quoted by Moynihan, that the dome of the mausoleum had developed a leak and needed repair. He got it repaired. He also said that though the octagonal pool and pavilions of the Mahtab Bagh were in good shape, the garden was inundated and had to be restored. This establishes the connection between the two parts separated by the river. The Bagh’s position on the lower bank of the Yamuna made it prone to flooding. It was lost in the sands of time till it was discovered in the 1990s.

On a recent trip to Agra, I read a few more books on the Bagh. A discussion with a PhD student from Cambridge University, Sarthak Malhotra, whose MPhil thesis was on the Taj Mahal, led me to another wonderful resource: Taj Mahal: Multiple Narratives, by Amita Baig and Rahul Mehrotra. It was while reading this book that the entire picture unfolded before my eyes, and I was able to reimagine the Mahtab Bagh as it was supposed to be.

The first tomb to be built on the Persian charbagh plan of paradisiacal tombs was Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. According to that plan, the tomb is placed squarely in the centre of the charbagh. The Taj Mahal, also modelled on the same theme, is at an edge of the garden. It is only when we understand the emperor’s grand vision that we understand the reason for its position: this vision had a river flowing in the charbagh over the illusory streams that flow from the main gate of the Taj and are in complete alignment with Mahtab Bagh’s water channels

Looking at the Taj’s reflection

Most tourists don’t visit Mahtab Bagh as it is a relatively long drive from the Taj and they don’t realise its importance. This is where the grief-stricken emperor came by boat from his palace and sat in the now-destroyed pavilions to look at the reflection of the teardrop in the octagonal pool.

The pool was discovered in 1993 under two or three meters of sand. When it was full, the reflection of the Taj would fall in it, in perfect symmetry. The beautiful garden, which was once home to many trees, has been redone and is a shadow of its former self. But the reflection of the Taj Mahal in the river, and in the pool if you visit during the monsoon, makes you forget everything else. As the pool was dry, I sat on the edge of the low wall that forms a boundary on the riverbank, to watch the sunset. As the sun came down and flooded the white marble beauty on the other side of the river with every imaginable hue, I could empathise with the emperor who would have sat in quiet contemplation of his lost love.

( this photo taken in a small puddle of water in the octagonal tank)

“A dome of high foundation & a building of great magnificence was created. The eye of age has seen nothing like it. It will be a masterpiece for ages to come increasing the amazement of all humanity.”

Qazwini in 1630s – Padshahnama

#TajMahal was always meant to be not just a magnificent mausoleum for a beloved wife but a testimony to power & glory of Shah Jahan & Mughal rule.

#TajMahal was inspired by a verse of Bilbadal Khan ‘May the abode of Mumtaz Mahal be Paradise.’

Shah Jahan mourned Mumtaz Mahal for two years continuously , wearing white clothes,gave up listening to music,using jewellery /perfumes

According to contemporary sources Shah Jahan cried so much that his eyes were spoilt from constant weeping and he had to wear spectacles. The Portuguese had just introduced it in India

Mumtaz died on a Wednesday in month of ZilQada

For years no entertainment was allowed on Wed or ZilQada &entire court wore white in that month.

Mumtaz’s uncle wrote to Shah Jahan that if he continued like this Mumtaz would have to leave the comforts of Paradise and return

That he should consider the children she had left in his care

Shah Jahan beard which had a few grey hair turned white during his mourning for Mumtaz Mahal

During Eid celebrations Shah Jahan would break down as he would miss Mumtaz amongst the festivities arranged by the ladies

The planned weddings if Dara Shukoh &Shah Shuja were postponed for two years

Raja Jai Singh, grandson of Man Singh and current was eager to present the site chosen to Shah Jahan but he insisted on giving him 4 havelis in exchange

The farman of transfer gives details of this exchange given in full in pg 168 of

Begley & Desai book

Reference from Ebba Koch

#TajMahal

Happy Listening!

http://play.raydio.in/api/episode/94c1e24e-84af-44b8-ad59-b3cfafeddecc/render

Prof R. Nath  ‘History of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture’
“Relics of the glorious age of the Mughals were either destroyed or converted beyond recognition.
Out of 270 beautiful monuments which existed at Agra alone, before its capture by Lake in 1803, hardly 40 have survived”.
Lord William Bentinck, (governor general of Bengal 1828-33, and later first governor general of all India), went so far as to announce plans to demolish the best Mogul monuments in Agra and Delhi and remove their marble facades. These were to be shipped to London, where they would be broken up and sold to members of the British aristocracy. Several of Shahjahan’s pavilions in the Red Fort at Delhi were indeed stripped to the brick, and the marble was shipped off to England (part of this shipment included pieces for King George IV himself). Plans to dismantle the Taj Mahal were in place, and wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds. Just as the demolition work was to begin, news from London indicated that the first auction had not been a success, and that all further sales were cancelled — it would not be worth the money to tear down the TajMahal. Thus the Taj Mahal was spared. [R. Nath’sHistory of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture]

David Carroll (in ‘Taj Mahal’) observes: “The forts in Agra and Delhi were commandeered at the beginning of the nineteenth century and turned into military garrisons. Marble reliefs were torn down, gardens were trampled, and lines of ugly barracks, still standing today, were installed in their stead. In the Delhi fort, the Hall of Public Audience was made into an arsenal and the arches of the outer colonnades were bricked over or replaced with rectangular wooden windows.”

On Taj Mahal he says: “..By the nineteenth century, its grounds were a favorite trysting place for young Englishmen and their ladies. Open-air balls were held on the marble terrace in front of the main door, and there, beneath Shah Jahan”s lotus dome, brass bands um-pah-pahed and lords and ladies danced the quadrille. The minarets became a popular site for suicide leaps, and the mosques on either side of the Taj were rented out as bungalows to honeymooners. The gardens of the Taj were especially popular for open-air frolics…..”

“At an earlier date, when picnic parties were held in the garden of the Taj, related Lord Curzon, a governor general in the early twentieth century, “it was not an uncommon thing for the revellers to arm themselves with hammer and chisel, with which they wiled away the afternoon by chipping out fragments of agate and carnelian from the cenotaphs of the Emperor and his lamented Queen.” The Taj became a place where one could drink in private, and its parks were often strewn with the figures of inebriated British soldiers…”

Taj tere liye ik mazhar-e-ulfat hi sahii
Tujh ko is vaadi-e-rangee’n se aqeedat hii sahii

Meri mehboob kahin aur milaa kar mujh se!

The Taj may be a symbol of love for you

You may have faith in this beautiful monument

My Beloved, please meet me elsewhere

Even Sahir Ludhianvi when denouncing the Taj Mahal, was very clear in his mind that he was rejecting it, not because it was not a symbol of love, but because it was not the symbol of a common man’s love. It symbolized the love of an Emperor only.

No one has ever questioned the emotions of Shah Jahan or his love for Mumtaz Mahal.

Khurram (the title Shah Jahan was given to him in 1617 by Jahangir) was the son of Jahangir and Jagat Gosain from the royal house of Jodhpur, also known as Jodh Bai. He inherited his mother’s Rajput features. He was fluent in Turki , the court language Persian and Hindavi which was spoken in North India.

Prince Khurram was betrothed to Arjumand Banu, daughter of Asaf Khan a Persian noble in 1607 and married to her in 1612.

Khurram gave her the title of Mumtaz Mahal Begum ( the Chosen One of the Palace) as in the words of Qazwini the writer of Padshahnama, a contemporary chronicle, he was so delighted with his new wife and found her in character and appearance Mumtaz amongst all the women of the time. .

Mohamamed Amin Qazwini further writes in his Padshahnama that the

“The intimacy, deep affection, attention and favor which His Majesty had for the Cradle of Excellence [another title of Mumtaz] exceeded by a thousand times what he felt for any other. And always that Lady of the Age was the companion, close confidante, associate and intimate friend of that successful ruler, in hardship and comfort, joy and grief, when travelling or in residence…. The mutual affection and harmony between the two had reached a degree never seen between a husband and wife among the classes of rulers (sultans), or among the other people. And this was not merely out of sexual passion (hawa-yi-nafs): the excellent qualities, pleasing habits, outward and inward virtues, and physical and spiritual compatibility on both sides caused great love and affection, and extreme affinity and familiarity.”(Translation Ebba Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal)

She accompanied him everywhere and it was in Burhanpur during the birth of her fourteenth child that she died in 1631.

The Emperor’s grief knew no bounds. I am indebted to Prof Yunus Jaffery from whom I am learning Persian for pointing out contemporary references to this extreme state of mourning that Shah Jahan had fallen into.

The Emperor wore white clothes while mourning for his wife and the rest of the court had to too.

His court historians record his passionate love for his wife and his inconsolable state after her death. Qazwini even records that he even considered abdicating his throne and becoming a religious recluse such was his sense of loss after Mumtaz Mahal Mahal.

He gave up wearing coloured clothes, jewelry hearing music or using perfume. His hair turned white, he wept so much he needed spectacles. (Prof Jaffery told me he was probably one of the first to wear spectacles, which had just been introduced in India by the Portugese). The day Wednesday and month of Zil Qada in which she died was observed as a month of mourning for years.

Prof Jaffery also told me of a letter which he found and reference to that is given by Ebba Koch in which, Qasim Khan ‘Manija’, husband of Mumtaz Mahal’s aunt, remonstrated with him. Manija said that if Shah Jahan mourned with this intensity, Mumtaz Mahal may have to give up the joy of Heaven to come back to earth, the place of misery. He added that Shah jahan should also remember the children she had left in his care.

Shah Jahan had already resolved to make the most perfect memorial to his dead wife inspired by words of Bilbadal Khan, “May the abode of Mumtaz Mahal be Paradise.”

Her body was taken out of its temporary grave in Burhanpur in Dec, 1631 itself and brought to Agra.

The foundation of the masoleum is on logs of sal wood sunk in wells fed by the waters of the Yamuna and all the chronicles record that the land found most suitable for this heavy and magnificent masoleum was found to be the palce of Man Singh, which was in the possession of his grandson, Jai Singh. It was called Aali Haveli (Lofty Mansion). Though Jai Singh was willing to give it as a present the Emperor bought it in lieu of 4 other havelis in Agra. (The translation of the farman of transfer of possession is given in Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Mughal and European Documentary Sources by W. E. Begley, Z. A. Desai 1989, pp 168-71.)

An Emperor so passionately mourning his wife would not build the Rauza e Munawwara (illuminated Tomb) or Rauza e Mutahhara (The Pure Tomb) as the mausoleum was officially called, on confiscated land as namaz is forbidden on it. That’s why his insistence on not accepting the land as a present and giving 4 havelis in exchange.

Bernier called it Tage Mahal and the British used the Term Taj Mahal as an acronym for Mumtaz Mahal.

There is great emphasis on Shah Jahan’s personal involvement in the building of the masoleum. The identitiy of the architect are not mentioned according to Ebba Koch that led to ‘fanciful speculation’. She adds that that ‘In the 19^th century, local informants of the British fabricated the story of an architect from Turkey named, “Ustad Isa’. So obviously it follows that all the tales of cutting off his hands etc were more tales of the fertile British informants and recievers of the information!

The two names mentioned in conenction are Ustad Ahmed Lahauri and Makramat Khan.

It was officially completed in 1643 and was meant for eternity.

Upon her grave-may it be illumined until the Day of Judgement

The King of Kings constructed such an edifice

That since Destiny drew the plan of Creation

It has not seen such an exalted building

Abu Talib Kalim, Padshahnama 1630-40

(tr Ebba Koch)