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An Architect Looks at Taj Mahal In continuation of Taj Mahal article from stephen-knapp.com AN ARCHITECT LOOKS AT THE TAJ MAHAL LEGEND by Professor Marvin H. Mills Pratt Institute,
In
their book TAJ MAHAL-THE ILLUMINED TOMB, Wayne Edison Begley and Ziyaud-Din Ahmad Desai have put together a very commendable
body of data and information derived from contemporary sources and augmented
with numerous photo illustrations, chroniclers' descriptions, imperial
directives plus letters, plans, elevations and diagrams. They have performed a
valuable service to the community of scholars and laymen concerned with the
circumstances surrounding the origin and development of the Taj
Mahal. But
these positive contributions exist within a framework of analysis and
interpretation that distorts a potential source of enlightenment into support
for fantasy and misinformation that has plagued scholarship in this field for
hundreds of years, thus obscuring the true origin of the Taj
Mahal complex. The two basic procedural errors that
they make is to assume that the dated inscriptions are
accurate and that court chroniclers are behaving like objective historians. As
an architect, my principal argument with the authors is their facile acceptance
of the compact time frame that they uncritically accept for the coming into
being of the Taj from conception to its first Urs (anniversary) of the death of Mumtaz
and the completion of the main building. Construction processes that had to
consume substantial blocks of time are condensed into a few months. They feel
justified in relying on what evidence is available, but fail to consider the
objective needs of construction. They regret the loss of what, they say, must
have been millions of Mughal state records and
documents produced each year on all aspects of the Taj's
construction. They do not consider that the lack of drawings, specifications
and records of payment may be due to their not being generated at the time. Nor
do they consider Shahjahan's potential for deception
as to when and by whom it was built. Yet they point out Shahjahan's
careful monitoring of the contents of court history: "Shajahan himself was probably responsible for this twisting
of historical truth. The truth would have shown him to be inconsistent and this
could not be tolerated. For this reason also, the histories contain no
statements of any kind that are critical of the Emperor or his policies, and
even military defeats are rationalized so that no blame could be attached to
him. ... effusive praise of the Emperor is carried to
such extremes that he seems more a divinity than a mortal man." (p. xxvi) With
the court chroniclers' histories carefully edited, and
with the great scarcity of documents we are fortunate to have four surviving farmans or directives issued by Shahjahan
to Raja Jai Singh of Amber-the very same local ruler from whom the Emperor
acquired the Taj property. On the basis of these farmans, the court chroniclers and a visiting European
traveler, we learn that: (i) Mumtaz
died and was buried temporarily at Burhanpur on June
17, 1631; (ii) her body was exhumed and taken to Agra on December 11, 1631;
(iii) she was reburied somewhere on the Taj grounds
on January 8, 1632; and (iv) European traveler Peter Mundy witnessed Shahjahan's return to Agra with his cavalcade on June 11,
1632. The
first farman was issued on
September 20, 1632 in which the Emperor urges Raja Jai Singh to hasten the
shipment of marble for the facing of the interior walls of the mausoleum, i.e.,
the Taj main building. Naturally a building had to be
there to receive the finish. How much time was needed to put that basic
building in place? Every
successful new building construction follows what we call in modern-day
construction a "critical path". There is a normal sequence of steps
requiring a minimum time before other processes follow. Since Mumtaz died unexpectedly and relatively young (having
survived thirteen previous child-births), we can assume that Shahjahan was unprepared for her sudden demise. He had to
conceive, in the midst of his trauma, of a world class tomb dedicated to her,
select an architect (whose identity is still debated), work out a design
program with the architect, and have the architect prepare designs, engineer
the structure and mechanical systems, detail the drawings, organize the
contractors and thousands of workers, and prepare a complex construction
schedule. Mysteriously, no documents relating to this elaborate procedure,
other than the four farmans
have survived. We
cannot assume that the Taj complex was built
additively with the buildings and landscaping built as needed. It was designed
as a unified whole. Begley and Desai make this clear by their analysis of the
grid system that was employed by the designer to unite the complex horizontally
and vertically to into a three-dimensional whole. If one did not
"know" that it was a solemn burial grounds,
one would believe that it was designed as a palace with a delightful air of
fantasy and secular delights of waterways and flowering plants. Could it be
that this is Raja Jai Singh's palace, never destroyed, converted
by decree and some minimum face-lifting to a Mughal
tomb? Assuming
that Shahjahan was galvanized into prompt action to
initiate the project on behalf of his deceased beloved, we can safely assume
that he needed one year minimum between conception and ground-breaking. Since Mumtaz died in June 1631, that
would take us to June 1632. But construction is said to have begun in
January 1632. Excavation
must have presented a formidable task. First, the demolition of Raja Jai
Singh's palace would have had to occur. We know that the property had a palace
on it from the chronicles of Mirza Qazini and Abd al-Hamid Lahori. Lahori
writes: "As
there was a tract of land (zamini) of great eminence and pleasantness towards
the south of that large city, on which before there was this mansion (manzil) of
Raja Man Singh, and which now belongs to his grandson Raja Jai Singh, it was
selected for the burial place (madfan) of that tenant of paradise.[Mumtaz]" (p. 43) Measures
would have to be taken during excavation of this main building and the other
buildings to the north to retain the But
here is the problem. On the anniversary of the death of Mumtaz,
each year Shahjahan would stage the Urs celebration at the Taj. The
first Urs occurred on June 22, 1632. Though
construction had allegedly begun only six months earlier, the great plinth of
red sandstone over brick, 374 yards long, 140 yards wide, and 14 yards high was
already in place! Even Begley and Desai are somewhat amazed. Where
was all the construction debris, the piles of materials, the marble, the brick
scaffolding, the temporary housing for thousands of workers, the numerous
animals needed to haul materials? If "heaven was surpassed by the
magnificence of the rituals", as one chronicler puts it, then nothing
should have been visible to mar the exquisite panorama that the occasion called
for. But
by June 1632, it was not physically possible that construction could have progressed
to completion of excavation, construction of all the footings and foundations,
completion of the immense platform and clearing of all the debris and eyesores
in preparation for the first Urs. Begley
and Desai have little use for the testimony of the European travelers to the
court of Shahjahan. But they consider Peter Mundy, an
agent of the British East India Company, to be the most important source on the
Taj because he was there shortly before the first Urs at the new grave site, and one year later at the second
Urs. It
was Mundy who said that he saw the installation of the enameled gold railing
surrounding Mumtaz's cenotaph at the time of the
second Urs on May 26, 1633. But
there is no way that construction could have moved ahead so vigorously from
January 1632 to May 1633 as to be ready to receive the railing. After
all, the railing could not have stood forth in the open air. It means that the Taj building had to be already there. It must have been
immensely valuable since the cost of the Taj complex
was reported to be fifty lakhs, while the cost of the
gold railing was six lakhs of rupees. The gold
railing was removed by Shahjahan on February 6, 1643
when it was replaced by the inlaid white marble screen one sees now. An
alternate interpretation of events regarding the railing is that Shahjahan revealed the gold railing of Raja Jai Singh at
the first or second Urs. In 1643 he appropriated it
for himself and put in its place the very fine marble screen with its inlaid
semi-precious stones, a screen that was not nearly as valuable as the gold
railing. If Shahjahan's construction and interior adornment of the Taj are in question, what rework of the Taj
can we attribute to him? The inscriptions were undoubtedly among the few rework
tasks that he was obliged to do. He may also have removed any obvious
references to Hinduism in the form of symbolic decor that existed. The
book's plate illustrations show that the inscriptions are almost always in a
discrete rectangular frame which renders them capable of being modified or
added to without damaging the adjascent material. In
my judgement the black script on the white marble
background seems inappropriate esthetically in the midst of the soft beige
marble that surrounds it. By adding the inscriptions Shahjahan
probably sought to establish the credibility of its having been his creation as
a sacred mausoleum instead of the Hindu palace that time will undoubtedly prove
that it was. Based
on the latest inscriptions dated 1638-39, which appear on the tomb, the authors
estimate a construction period of six years. Six years in my judgement is simply not enough time. As reasonable
approximation of the total time required to build the Taj complex, we can consider Tavernier's estimate of
twenty-two years. Although he first arrived in The
issue of repairs is taken up by the authors in their translation of the
original letter of Aurangazeb to his father dated
December 9, 1652. He reports serious leaks on the north side, the four arched
portals, the four small domes, the four northern vestibules, subchambers of the plinth, plus leaks from the previous
rainy season. The question the authors do not raise is: Would the Taj, being at most only thirteen years old, already have
shown symptoms of decay? Wouldn't it be more reasonable to believe that by 1652
it was already hundreds of years old and was showing normal wear and tear. Who
built the Taj? The authors say it was Ahmad Ustad Lahori, chief architect for
Shahjahan. They base this belief mainly on the
assertion by Luft Allah, the son of Lahori, in a collection of verses, that Shahjahan
commanded Lahori to build both the Taj and the Red Fort at The
court historians are unfailing in their praise for the Emperor's personal
participation in his massive architectuaral projects
and they are never lacking in glorifying his sterling character. But the
European travelers have other things to say about his personality and his
inability to focus on anything for long except his lust for women. Nor is the
object of his supposed great love either tender or compassionate. It seems that
both "lovers" were cruel, self-centred and
vicious. To believe that out of this relationship, with the support of Shahjahan's alleged great architectural skills, came what
many consider to be the most beautiful building complex in the world, is sheer
romantic nonsense. While
Begley and Desai are sceptical of the Taj Mahal's being a consequence
of romantic devotion, they yield not an inch in asserting its Mughal origin. They support this traditional view by
overlooking some key problems: 1.
Consider the identical character of the two buildings on either side of the Taj main building. If they had different functions-one a
mosque, the other a guest residence-then, they should have been designed
differently to reflect their individual functions. 2.
Why does the perimeter wall of the complex have a Medieval, pre-artillery,
defense character when artillery (cannons) was already in use in the Mughal invasions of 3.
Why are there some twenty rooms below the terrace level on the north side of
the Taj facing the 4.
What is in the sealed-up rooms on the south side of the long corridor opposite
the twenty contiguous rooms? Who filled in the doorway with masonry? Why are
scholars not allowed to enter and study whatever objects or decor are within? 5.
Why does the "mosque" face due west instead of facing Meccah? Certainly, by the seventeenth century there was no
problem in orienting a building precisely! 6.
Why has the Archaeological Survey of India blocked any dating of the Taj by means of Carbon-14 or thermo-luminiscnece?
Any controversy over which century the Taj was built
could easily be resolved. [Radiocarbon dating of a piece of wood surreptiously taken from one of the doors gave 13th century
as a possible date. But more data is needed.] If Shajahan did not build the Taj
for the love of Mumtaz, then why did he want it? His
love for Mumtaz was evidently a convenient
subterfuge. He actually wanted the existing palace for himself. He appropriated
it from Raja Jai Singh by making him an offer he could not refuse, the gift of
other properties in exchange. He also acquired whatever was precious within the
building including the immensely valuable gold railing. By
converting the complex into a sacred Moslem mausoleum he insured that the
Hindus would never want it back. Shahjahan converted
the residential quarters to the west of the main building to a mosque simply by
modifying the interior of the west wall to create a mihrab
niche. He added Islamic inscriptions around many doorways and entries to give
the impression that the Taj had always been Islamic.
Sure enough, the scholars have been silent or deceived ever since. Yet,
we must thank Begley and Desai for having assembled so much useful data and
translated contemporary writings and inscriptions. Where they failed is in
accepting an apocryphal legend of the Taj for an
absolute fact. Their interpretations and analyses have been forced into the
mold of their bias. It would be well to take advantage of their work by
scholars and laymen interested in deepening their knowledge of the Taj Mahal to read the book while
keeping an open mind as to when and by whom it was built. Added note:
There
are fundamental problems with the current theory of Islamic Architecture in (1)
Unlike in the case of Hindu architecture, where there are literally hundreds of
works on Vastu in several Indian languages, there
seem to be almost no texts or manuals on Islamic architecture. It is difficult
to see how a great school of architecture lasting 600 years could flourish
without any technical literature. (2)
Hindu architectural practices and traditions are maintained by thousands of
mason families, especially in (3)
There are no standards of units and measurements for Islamic architecture in TAJ
MAHAL-The Illumined Tomb, an anthology of seventeenth century Mughal and European documentary sources, by W.E. Begley and
Z.A. Desai: Published by the University of Washington Press, Seattle and
London, 1989 (The Aga Khan Program for Islamic
Architecture).
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