Day Three the Taj Mahal

Originally Written October 31, 2015

So why was the Taj Mahal built? Well it is a great and sad love story. When Shah Jahan the fifth of Mughal Emperors was a young man he fell in love with a young girl hawking silk and glass beads in the market place. He was really smitten! 

He purchased enough of her silk and glass to determine her age, 15, her name, Arjumand Begum and that she was a Persian Princess. He was 14 at the time. He petitioned his father to make arrangements for marriage and after a five year wait they were married in 1631. 

After Jahan become the Shah he entrusted many decisions to his wife and went so far as to let her use the Royal Seal in his absences. During this time he renamed her Mumtaz Mahal, "The Chosen One of the Palace". Theirs was a marriage of love that resulted in 14 children, seven of which survived to adulthood. 

Mumtaz became ill and died giving birth to her 14th child and on her deathbed made Jahan promise to never remarry and to build for her a mausoleum of the richest proportion.  After two years of mourning he set about designing and building the Taj Mahal. The Taj is designed in complete symmetry, no matter where you stand all four sides are the same.  At a cost of around 32 million rupees, the equivalent to 827 million US today, the Taj is built completely out of white Indian Marble and took 22 years and 20,000 workers to complete. 

The Shah had intended to build an identical mausoleum out of black marble directly across the river from The Taj Mahal so that they could view each other through eternity, however his third son was very ambitious and determined that building another structure would be a waste of money and so over threw his father and oldest brothers reign. He confined the Shah to house arrest and Jahan spent the last 8 years of his life being tended to by his eldest daughter and sitting on the balcony that over looked the Taj Mahal. 

Where the Shah was imprisoned

The Taj itself is one of the most beautiful structures I have had the privilege of visiting and the architecture and craftsmanship is outstanding. I wonder how our concrete and steel structures will be surviving after 400 years.

This intricate work is throughout the Taj Mahal

Agra Fort was originally started in the 11th century and changed hands as succeeding conquerors took it over.  The present Fort was completed by Shah Jahan in the 1600s and occupies 94 acres. It is a massive structure built out of Red Sandstone and at one time may have been home to 500 separate buildings. Many of the interior buildings were destroyed by Shah Jahan  and were replaced by white marble.

It is in one of these white marble structures were he lived out is final years of confinement. It is almost two miles in length and contains palaces, mosques and audience halls. It also houses some of India's military forces and only about one third is open to the public.

Part of the Fort

We visited a marble shop where they sell inlaid marble table tops and other pieces of work on behalf of a marble cooperation. These marble craftsman all belong to family structures where the boys are trained from a very young age to work with marble. Designs are drawn on the marble and then etched out by hand using small chisels and grinding tools. These designs are then filled in with semi-precious gem stones that are ground to shape on a hand driven emery wheel. It is very delicate work, a flower the size of a quarter may have six or seven fine pieces to it. Photography was not allowed, but purchasing was, way over our budget.

Part of the Taj Mahal at sunrise