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Narayan, myself, Sandeep, Geetu and the children went on a day trip to see the Taj Mahal from Delhi. While its only 200km from Delhi to Agra fog, camel drawn carts, potholes and various other treacherous surprises turned the drive into a five hour expedition. But what a sight when we finally got there!
The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum built on the bank of the Yamuna river by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his second wife Mumtaz Mahal (whose name means jewel of the palace) after she died in 1631. Construction took 22 years, employing some 20,000 craftsmen. The main architect was Isa Khan from Shiraz, Iran. Combining both Persian and Indian architectural styles, the tomb and grounds are meant to bring into reality the Muslim idea of Paradise. Materials and workmanship were imported from as far as Europe and China. At the end of the project the emperor cut the hand or thumb of some of the workers so that the perfection of Taj could never be reproduced.
Shah Jahan through his reign built many monuments besides the Taj, including the Red Fort in Delhi. He also commissioned the extravagant Peacock Throne (a 6 feet high marble throne inlaid with diamond, rubies and emeralds) which I saw in Tehran back in November. These projects, combined with several military expeditions against Persia and Central Asia proved to be a serious strain on state finances. Shah Jahan was forced to raise taxes which raised hostility against the Mughals. They were to decline rapidly after the reign of his son.
Like the Ottomans, the Mughals had no clear set of rules regarding succession to the throne. They believed that God would choose the most worthy successor. In reality, this produced serious conflicts as each emperor aged. Shah Jahan, upon his father's death, had all his male collateral relatives executed to ensure his position. When Shah Jahan himself fell sick around 1657 conflict broke out between his sons. It ended with the victory of Aurangzeb, who imprisoned his father in 1658 and executed his older brother. Shah Jahan spent the following 8 years in Agra's Fort before he died. He is said to have looked constantly at the Taj Mahal through a small hole in the wall of his cell. He is buried in the Taj, next to Mumtaz.
On the day we visited the Taj Mahal, there was quite a bit of fog: white monument against a white background. I found it very hard to find interesting ways to photograph the monument, which everyone has already seen from so many angles. Adding to difficulty is the fact that Taj is visited by throngs of people everyday. But even in these less than ideal conditions the perfection of the ensemble is the overwhelming impression one gets.
The government of Uttar Pradesh is going through great lengths to preserve the monument: traffic is limited within 4km of the structures, and there are severe restrictions on industry emissions to preserve the white marble. According to my guidebook, there is also an old Ayurvedic (traditional Indian plant-based) concoction, normally used to cleanse the pore of the skin, which is applied on the white marble of the Taj in order extract dirt particles from the stone.
To this day one can still feel the strong influence of the Mughals on traditional Hindu society. In my experience, religion is what usually sets moral bounds of conducts in society. But in the case of Hinduism, the religion itself is very permissive and has nothing to say of the kind. As proof, the sculptures of Ellora or Khajuraho. Most of the limits that I am confronted to seem to come directly from the Islam via the Mughals. For example: the strict enforcement of marriage, the shame of divorce, acute consciousness of image, problem elicited by the presence of a man (such as myself) in the house of a married women while her husband is away...
The Taj Mahal is the eastern end of my quest on the trail of Islamic architecture masterpieces. While I will see more in Rajasthan in the next few weeks, its only because I will be heading West again for a short while. East of Agra, its all Hindu or Buddhist. Its neat to see the transition from one culture to the next with such clarity. Thousand of years of intermixing of people and cultures doesn't erase these boundaries, they just get slightly blurred. There are Muslims east of Agra, for sure. But who has the resources to build such monuments these days?
In 1995, when I started to work at Imager — the computer graphics lab at the university of British Columbia in Vancouver — I saw an animation from a project that had recently been completed, whose goal was to visualize the design principles of the Taj Mahal with 3D computer graphics. With a bit of Internet research, I was able to find that Dr. Ron Lane-Smith and David Botta had collaborated on the piece. I am wondering if any of the ex-Imagers who read these updates have a copy of this animation, or contact info for David Botta or Dr. Lane-Smith. I would love to see this piece again, and possibly post it here if they grant me permission.
India and the Kingdom of Nepal (gallery) (next entry =>) Uttar Pradesh India Places Friends Travel Religion Society