Taj Mahal, the Mystique Endures
By Dr Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
In one of his celebrated poems, Nobel-Prize winning poet, Robinder Nath Tagore, metaphorically referred to the Taj Mahal as “a teardrop glistening spotlessly bright on the cheek of time .” Over three and half centuries have passed since this majestic monument of love was built by emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife, Arjumand Banu Begum (Mumtaz Mahal), who died while giving birth to their fourteenth child. The Taj Mahal was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1983.
Its popularity now draws an estimated three million visitors a year. Despite constant care and repairs by the Indian Department of Archeology, its translucent marble floors and spacious pavilions have been showing signs of wear and tear, losing some their former pearl-like radiance. Besides the heavy human traffic, some blame also goes to the atmospheric pollution and toxic industrial fumes emanating from industries in the vicinity, although some of these problems have abated recently.
Francois Bernier, the French physician, who visited India in 1658-1669, during the reign of Aurungzeb, was amazed by the grandeur and opulence of the mausoleum and the abundance of inlaid precious stones he observed. In his book, Travels in the Mogul Empire, he effused, “Everywhere are seen the jasper gemstone, and Jachen or jade as well as similar stones that enrich the walls of Grand Duke’s palace at Florence.” However, this felicitous situation did not last long. In the prevailing anarchy, following the collapse of the Mogul authority in the eighteenth century, the Mogul architectural masterpiece was plundered and ransacked by unruly, marauding militias, especially Jats, and then the Marathas armies. They chiseled precious and semiprecious stones from the walls of the monument and, according to some reports, carried away the silver gates that once adorned the entrances to the Taj.
In 1803, the East India Company, under the command of General Lake, occupied Agra, but the officials found no trace of expensive drapes, carpets and other precious objects reputed to have bedecked the Taj Mahal. The jurisdiction of the East India Company over Agra, however, proved only marginally better than of previous unruly occupiers. The Company officials, unappreciative of its exquisite beauty, rented out the two buildings flanking the Taj (mosque and guest house) to newlywed couples for their honeymoons. And, occasionally, late night dance parties were organized on the marble terraces, while a military band played at lower levels of the building.
Lord Curzon, who served as the viceroy of India from 1899-1905, was a great admirer of India’s historic monuments and is credited with their restoration and preservation. His comments quoted from his letters by Diana and Michael Preston in their book, Taj Mahal, are revealing: “At an earlier date when picnic parties were held in the gardens of the Taj, it was not an uncommon thing for the revelers to arm themselves with hammer and chisel with which they whiled away the afternoons by chipping out fragments of agate and carnelian from the cenotaphs.” He went on to proudly claim, “Every building in the garden enclosure of Taj has been scrupulously repaired and the discovery of the old plans has enabled us to restore the water channels and flower beds more exactly to their original state.”
Lord Curzon visited the mausoleum every year during his viceroyalty. As a token of his abiding love, he ordered construction of a replica of an antique lamp that he had seen hanging in one of the mosques in Cairo for the Taj Mahal. The oriental brass lamp crafted by skilled artisans in Agra still hangs from the ceiling over the tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan in the lower chamber. In one of his final speeches from the terrace of the Taj Mahal before leaving India, Curzon declared: “ If I had never done anything else in India, I have written my name here and the letters are a living joy."
While the story of Taj Mahal has been widely known and celebrated, it may not be as broadly known that the Taj Mahal was not the original burial place of Mumtaz Mahal and the site was not the first choice for her mausoleum. She was first buried in Burhanpur, now a midsize city on the Tapti River in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, where Shah Jahan considered the building of her tomb by the river. The idea was abandoned as unfeasible, based on doubts about the stability of the riverbed. Nevertheless, the story of how Burhanpur missed out as the final burial place of Mumtaz Mahal is fascinating.
After its capture by Akbar in 1601, Burhanpur became a regional Mogul capital and, during their numerous campaigns against Deccan sultanates, it served as the headquarters and staging ground for military operations. During his reign Shah Jahan spent considerable time here, always accompanied by Mumtaz Mahal. On one such occasion in 1631, he was camping in Burhanpur, mobilizing forces against a rebel chieftain, Khan Jahan Lodhi. The empress as usual was lodged in her three-storied, luxurious royal apartment, which was adjacent to a lake on which she liked to be rowed. Mumtaz Mahal was also expecting her fourteenth child.
In the intense heat of June, unexpectedly, she went into a thirty-hour long labor. She died in the arms of her husband, with her beautiful, eighteen-years-old daughter, Jahanara Begum, by her side. Shah Jahan was devastated and according to an account cited by Annemarie Schimmel, in The Empire of the Great Mughals, “His beard turned grey. He could not stop weeping for two years, so that his eyes grew weak. He wore mourning clothes all the time at first and then, later on, every Wednesday, the day of her death.” Mumtaz Mahal was initially interred in a rose-colored pavilion in a garden by the Tapti River, while a decision was being made about her final burial place. After six months, her remains were transferred with great pageantry and ceremony to Agra, where she now reposes by the Yamuna river.
The fortunes of the Mogul Empire and Burhanpur were closely intertwined. As Mogul power waned, Burhanpur sank into obscurity and, in barely two centuries, the memory of its former glory receded from public consciousness. With crumbling buildings and rundown infrastructure, today it is a sleepy little town, forgotten in the mists of history, where few tourists ever come to visit.
Yet, one can still find evidence of Burhanpur’s luminous past hidden behind its current derelict and ramshackle façade. Recently, in an article published in the New York Times, a tourist described what he observed in the old Mogul capital of South India. “Behind its dirty, unpaved streets and open garbage dumps, Burhanpur hides an abundance of magnificent Islamic monuments dating back to 15 th century. We found in Burhanpur the ruins of a riverside palace; airy pavilions with intricately carved pillars; grand stone mausoleums with lattice windows that throw filtered beams of dusty light.”
Today, the park where Mumtaz Mahal’s body was temporarily buried is in especially sorry state, its grounds overtaken by shrubs and weeds “where wild goats and cows roam freely.” The first burial place of Shah Jahan’s beloved empress, the resplendent pink pavilion, which might have been the location of the Taj Mahal, is now in a decrepit state, devoid even of a ceiling. Much like those of mighty empires, the fortunes of cities are also ephemeral.
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