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The most beautiful building in
the world. In 1631 the emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in
memory of his wife Mumtaz, who died in childbirth. The white marble
mausoleum at Agra has become the monument of a man's love for a
woman.
Shah Jahan came to power in 1622
when he seized the throne from his father, while murdering his
brothers to ensure his claim to rule. He was known as an extravagant
and cruel leader. But he redeemed himself by his generosity to his
friends and the poor, by his passion in adorning India with some of
its most beautiful architecture, and by his devotion to his wife
Mumtaz Mahal - "Ornament of the Palace." He had married her when he
was 21, when he already had two children by an earlier consort.
Mumtaz gave her husband 14 children in eighteen years, and died at
the age of 39 during the birth of the final child. Shah Jahan built
the Taj Mahal as a monument to her memory and her fertility, but
then relapsed into a life of scandalous behavior. This tomb was only
one of hundreds of beautiful buildings that Shah Jahan erected,
mostly at Agra and in the new Dehli that came into being under his
planning.
Many architects have rated it as
the most perfect of all buildings standing on earth. Three artists
designed it: a Persian, an Italian, and a Frenchman. But the design
is completely Mohammedan. Even the skilled artisans who built it
were brought in from Baghdad, Constantinople, and other centers of
the Muslim faith. For 22 years more than 20,000 workmen were forced
to build the Taj. The Maharaja of Jaipur sent the marble as a gift
to Shah Jahan. The building and its surroundings cost more than
$200,000,000 in todays currency.
Passing through a high wall, one
comes suddently upon the Taj - raised upon a marble platform, and
framed on either side by handsome mosques and stately minarets. In
the foreground spacious gardens enclose a pool in whose waters the
inverted palace becomes a quivering dream. Every portion of the
structure is of white marble, precious metals, or costly stones. The
building is a complex figure of twelve sides, four of which are
portals. A slender minaret rises at each corner, and the roof is a
massive spired dome. The main entrance, once guarded with solid
silver gates, is a maze of marble embroidery; inlaid in the wall in
jeweled script are qotations from the Koran, one of which invites
the "pure in heart" to enter "the gardens of Paradise."
Shah Jahan had begun his reign
by killing his brothers; but he had neglected to kill his sons, one
of whom was destined to overthrow him. In 1657 his son Aurangzeb led
an insurrection from the Deccan. Aurangzeb defeated all the forces
sent against him, captured his father, and imprisoned him in the
Fort of Agra. For 9 bitter years the deposed emperor lingered there,
never visited by his son, attended only by his faithful daughter
Jahanara, and spending his days looking from the Jasmine Tower of
his prison across the Jumna to where his once-beloved Mumtaz lay in
her jeweled tomb.
The new emperor Aurangzeb was a
more pious Muslim than his father Shah Jahan had been. He memorized
the entire Koran, spent days in fasts, and campaigned against
infidelity. He cared little for luxuries, but, paradoxically, gave
the world one of its most perfect works of art: a marble screen
inside the Taj Mahal. Native and European thieves robbed the tomb of
its abundant jewels, and of the gold railing, encrusted with
precious stones, that once enclosed the sarcophagi of Shah Jahan and
his Queen. Aurangzeb replaced the railing with an octagonal screen
of almost transparent marble, carved into a miracle of alabaster
lace. Few products of human art have ever surpassed the beauty of
this screen.
From afar the Taj Mahal, with
its delicate details, is not imposing. Only a nearer view reveals
that its perfection has no proportion to its size. When in our
hurried times, we see enormous structures of a hundred stories
raised in a year, and then consider how 20,000 men worked for 22
years on this little tomb, hardly a hundred feet high, we begin to
sense the difference between industry and art. And perhaps more
importantly, we sense the ultimate lesson it offers: beauty and that
which lasts, is based on love.
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