Taj Mahal

The history of the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal, a massive white marble mausoleum built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 on the orders of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, is India’s crown jewel of Muslim art and one of the world’s most admired works of art. Its fame is undoubtedly partly due to the tumultuous circumstances surrounding its construction. This funerary mosque was built by Shah Jahan to commemorate the memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631. The monument, which began in 1632 and was completed in 1648, is said to have been built by an international team of tens of thousands of masons, marble workers, mosaicists, and decorators working under the orders of the emperor’s architect, Ustad Ahmad Lahori.

This funerary monument, bounded by four isolated minarets and situated on the right bank of the Yamuna in a vast Mogul garden of some 17 ha, reigns with its octagonal structure capped by a bulbous dome through the criss-cross of open perspectives offered by alleys or water basins. The rigor of a perfect elevation of astonishing graphic purity is obscured and almost contradicted by the scintillation of a fairy-like decor. 

The white marble, the primary building material, brings out and scintillates the floral arabesques, decorative bands, and calligraphic inscriptions incrusted in polychromatic pietra dura. White Makrana marble from Jodhpur was among the materials brought in from India and Central Asia. Baghdad provided the precious stones for the inlay; Punjab, Egypt, Russia, Golconda, China, Afghanistan, Ceylon, the Indian Ocean, and Persia are among the countries represented. The Mughal architectural style is unique in that it incorporates elements and styles from Persian, Central Asian, and Islamic architecture.

Who built the Taj Mahal?

It was built in memory of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan’s wife, Mumtaz Mahal, with construction beginning in 1632 AD and ending in 1648 AD, with the mosque, guest house, and the main gateway on the south, and the outer courtyard and its cloisters added later in 1653 AD.

According to legend, Shah Jahan decreed that anyone who took the scaffold’s bricks could keep them, so it was dismantled by peasants overnight. To transport marble and materials to the construction site, a 15-kilometer tamped-earth ramp was built, and teams of twenty or thirty oxen pulled the blocks on specially constructed wagons. To raise the blocks into the desired position, an elaborate post-and-beam pulley system was used. A series of purses, an animal-powered rope and bucket mechanism, drew water from the river into a large storage tank, then raised to a large distribution tank.

Outlying buildings

Crenelated red sandstone walls surround the Taj Mahal complex; the side facing the river is open. Several additional mausoleums, including those of Shah Jahan’s other wives and a larger tomb for Mumtaz’s favourite servant, are located outside the walls.  These structures, mostly made of red sandstone, are typical of Mughal tombs of the time. Columned arcades front the garden-facing inner sides of the wall, a feature common in Hindu temples later incorporated into Mughal mosques.

The main gateway (Darwaza) is a massive marble structure that harkens back to earlier Mughal emperors’ Mughal architecture. Its pishtaq arches incorporate the tomb’s calligraphy, and its archways mirror the shape of the tomb’s archways.

Two grand red sandstone buildings face the sides of the tomb and are located at the far end of the complex. The western and eastern walls run parallel to the backs of the buildings. The western structure is a mosque, while the other is the jawab, which is thought to have been built for architectural balance but could have also served as a guesthouse.

Tourism

Taj Ganji or Mumtazabad, a small town to the south of the Taj, was built with caravanserais, bazaars, and markets to serve the needs of visitors and workers. The Taj Mahal is frequently included in lists of recommended travel destinations, and it is also included in several lists of the modern world’s seven wonders.

The Taj Mahal is a popular tourist destination. In 2001, UNESCO recorded over 2 million visitors, which had increased to around 7–8 million in 2014. There is a two-tier pricing system, with Indian citizens paying a lower entrance fee and foreigners paying a higher fee.

On weekdays, the grounds are open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., except on Fridays, when the complex is open for mosque prayers from 12:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Except on Fridays and during Ramadan, the complex is open for night viewing on the full moon day and two days before and after.

Conclusion

The Taj Mahal is the perfect example of Mughal architecture, with influences from Persia, Islam, and India. It is a white marble octagonal structure with four main sides and four intermediate sides. The whole thing is symmetrical. All of the main faces have iwans or giant ogive-shaped porches. The mausoleum proper, which sits in the middle of a wide plinth 23 feet (7 meters) high, is made of white marble that changes colour depending on the intensity of sunlight or moonlight. It has four nearly identical facades, each with a large central arch.