Millions Visit India, But How Many See the Taj Mahal?

Taj Mahal, a monument of love between a beautiful queen and a great Mughal emperor. It is no ordinary monument of love. It is one of the seven wonders of the world. A colorful brochure of Taj Mahal says: “Before she died, Mumtaz Mahal made Shah Jahan promise that he would build a tomb that would remind the world of their great love.” Many people have visited the great Taj and have written volumes on its majestic beauty and its architectural wonder. The many expert tourist guides who take tourists into the Taj have this to say: “there is so much to see and write about the magnificent Taj that one will not stop writing about the wonders of Taj.”

The once famous Mughal city of Agra is about 200 kilometres from the Indian capital of New Delhi, where the Taj was built by Emperor Shah Jahan, some 300 years ago. You can either fly into Agra, or travel by road. If you leave Delhi about 8 am by car, you can reach Agra by about 2 pm. There are many hotels in Agra, some like the five-star hotel Mughal Sheraton, while there are also cheap hotels. The Taj is about two kilometers from Agra city. Most of the guides are professionals, especially those from the Government of India Tourist Office. They know the history and other details of the Taj, like the inside of their palms. Emperor Shah Jahan took 22 years to build the “peerless beauty” some 300 years ago. Mumtaz Mahal spent 18 years of her married life with Shah Jahan and gave birth to 14 children. During this period she solved many an administrative problem for her husband, who was engaged in a war with Khanjahan Lodhi. During her 14th pregnancy, Mumtaz fell seriously ill. The emperor went all out of the way to save his wife during the delivery, but to no avail.

As promised earlier, Shah Jahan ordered the building of the mausoleum. Shah Jahan’s love for Mumtaz was so great that in utter agony he gave up the royal dress and started wearing “white clothes.” Mumtaz was initially buried at Burhanpur and six months later, her remains were temporarily reburied in a garden on the bank of River Jamuna, where it was proposed to build Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan called for designs and layouts from outstanding architects. Innumerable designs were presented to the emperor. Finally in 1632, the design by Ustad Khan Effendi was selected. Shortly after, the construction started with a labour force of 20,000 workmen and technicians such as handpicked masons, stone cutters and jewel designers. The marble was brought in from Makrana and Sikri in India, and some precious stones were brought in from Afghanistan, Persia and Central Asia. In those days there were no huge cranes to lift heavy stones, so to prepare Taj’s biggest dome and to carry the construction material to that height, a four kilometer long slope was constructed. When the Taj was completed, Mumtaz was buried in the basement directly above the biggest dome. On the first floor another tomb, exactly similar to the one below was constructed to preserve the sanctity and calmness the grave deserves. There are 22 small domes on top of the west gate, which is the main entrance to Taj to mark the 22 years it took to complete the Taj. The Taj has two other gates, one from the south and the other from the west. The south gate is known as the “Sirhi Darwaza,” (the gateway of steps).

From here the visitors can get a picturesque view of the old town of Mumtazabad, which is the present Tajganj. This was the colony where workmen involved in the construction of Taj lived. The east gate leads to Fatehabad. The Taj opens into an octagonal hall surrounded by small rooms on either sides and have ornamental gates on two sides. One opens towards the royal inn and the other towards the Taj Mausoleum. When Taj was built, the pole star was directly above the central dome. But it seems it has slightly tilted during the past 300 years. The architect designed the Taj on the banks of River Jamuna in such a way that if you view the building from the center of the entrance of the gateway, it would appear that the Taj is framed by the arch of the gateway.

On a bright moonlight night the pole star is on the central dome of the main building and the pure white Taj turns turquoise blue, against the backdrop of the sky. The designer also provided a 600-meter-long vista from the main gate to the Taj proper, because he felt that “distance adds enchantment to this view.” There are several inscriptions from the Koran both on the Taj and the gates. One of these reads,  “When the sun is covered, and when the stars darken, and when the stars darken, and when the mountains are made to pass away, and when the camels are left and when the wild animals are made to go forth, and when the cities are made to swell, and when men are united, and when the one buried alive is asked for what sin was she killed?.”

The spacious court between the gates of Taj is a quadrangle enclosure with 128 rooms. This enclosure is known as Jilo Khana. Surrounding the tomb of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is an octagonal marble screen with red rose flowers carved beautifully in them. The roses are mounted with the petals neatly carved out of red marbles and the leaves in green and are highly polished to give them the natural look. Our guide went close to the rose flowers and flashed his torch on one of the roses and we could see each petal of the rose coming alive, as though it were real. Such is the beauty of the architecture of the Taj that a cursory glimpse and walk around the Taj is definitely not enough. It takes several hours to see the Taj. There is an Indian saying that “Only the gifted will be privileged to see Taj. Millions visit India, but how many see the Taj?”.