Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is arguably India’s most famous building. It is a white marble mausoleum that stands as a magnificent symbol of Shah Jahan’s love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. The name Taj Mahal means the Crown of Palaces, and the work is also considered the most prestigious building of the many Muslim buildings in India.

Shah Jahan was the emperor during the most prosperous era of the Mughal rulers. In 1631 he was struck by grief when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died giving birth to their fourteenth child. Mumtaz Mahal was a Persian princess who had received her name, which means the Chosen One of the Palace. Shah Jahan chose to build the finest tomb for his beloved wife, and the construction of the Taj Mahal was started in 1632. The mausoleum itself was completed in 1648, while the surrounding buildings and greenery were completed in 1653.

Architecturally, the Taj Mahal is a fine blend of Persian and early Mughal style with inspiration from several different Muslim styles and buildings; among others from the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum in Samarkand, Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi and Itmad-ud-Daulah’s Tomb in Agra a short distance north of the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan’s works were refined compared to earlier Mughal constructions, which were mainly constructed in red sandstone. Shah Jahan used white marble inlaid with semi-precious stones, and this also happened at the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal building complex is surrounded on three sides by a red sandstone wall. It is only towards the river Yamuna that the wall was not built. Outside the walls, there are other mausoleums for, among others, Shah Jahan’s other wives. Along the walls on the inside, pillared arcades were built, which is an element of traditional Hindu temple buildings. To the south is the Great Gate/Darwaza-i Rauza as the main entrance to the facility and complex. The gate was built with significant parts of marble in a style that derives partly from earlier Mughal buildings and partly from the iconic tombstone in the Taj Mahal itself.

The mausoleum is the Taj Mahal’s central and iconic building, and it is located in the axis in front of the main entrance. It was built in marble and rests on a square elevation. The components of the building are an iwan as an entrance. An iwan is a Persian and Central Asian portal chamber with a pointed vault, and the entrance to the iwan is a pishtaq, of which there is one on each of the Taj Mahal’s four sides. There are two smaller arched balconies on either side of each pishtaq, and there are also two on each of the angled sides between the facades. The entire building is crowned by four chhatris with the same dome shape as the Taj Mahal’s large and beautiful dome. Small spiers are placed along the edges of the facades to emphasize the height of the dome and the entire tombstone.

Framing this central building are four white minarets that reach a height of over 40 meters. The minarets were designed identically to working minarets and were built on the outside of the Taj Mahal’s elevation. This was done so that a possible collapse would cause the minarets to fall away from the burial ground itself. The minarets were crowned by chhatria in the same style as the main building, and like it, the minarets are also topped with so-called finials, which are again decorated with crescents.

A number of quotations from the Muslim holy book were used to decorate the Taj Mahal. The words appear beautifully in calligraphy, and from other decorations you can see stylized plant motifs, tiles and so on. The interior is elegantly decorated with precious and semi-precious stones. The burial chamber itself is in a crypt, while there are cenotaphs for both Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan on the ground floor.

Both storeys of the tombs are richly decorated, and of the rooms it is in the upper one that one can admire the splendor of Shah Jahan’s edifice. Semi-precious stones wind around the cenotaphs in shapes like flowers and plants. The Muslim tradition attributes that burial chambers are not richly decorated in themselves, and therefore the crypt is simply furnished. Of the cenotaphs, Shah Jahan’s is the largest and Mumtaz Mahal’s the smallest.

On either side of the Taj Mahal itself are two mirror-image and thus identical buildings. The western of these was built as a functioning mosque, while the eastern merely functions as a symmetrical element in the complex, with only Shah Jahan’s tomb and cenotaph being out of symmetry. However, for religious reasons there are some internal differences between the mosque and its mirror image. In the mosque, there is a mihrab in the wall facing Mecca, and the floor here is covered with prayer rugs. The exterior design of the mosque is basically similar to other of Shah Jahan’s mosque buildings such as the Jama Masjid in Delhi.

Between the walls and around the tomb itself in the Taj Mahal, there is a Mughal garden, a so-called charbagh, which was laid out according to Persian tradition and model. Raised paths divide the garden into a total of sixteen sunken beds, and this is to illustrate the four rivers in the paradise of Jannah. In the design, it is believed that the Moonlight Garden/Mehtab Bagh on the opposite bank of the river Yamuna is included, and that the Yamuna is thus one of the four rivers. In addition to the rivers, there is also a reflection pond in the central axis from the entrance to the mausoleum.

The area that Shah Jahan selected for the construction of the Taj Mahal was once owned by Maharaja Jai ​​Singh. He was given a larger palace in central Agra in exchange for the land on the banks of the Yamuna. Ground and foundation work was carried out at the start, and later fifteen kilometers of earthen ramps were built to transport the large amount of marble that had to be used for the construction.

The materials for the construction came from most of India and large parts of Asia, and around 1,000 elephants are believed to have been used to transport the many items needed for the construction. The white marble came from Makrana in Rajasthan, while for example jade came from China and sapphires from Sri Lanka. Sculptors from Bukhara and calligraphers from Persia and Syria were just some of the approximately 20,000 men who worked on the construction.

Several times over time, the Taj Mahal has been threatened. At the end of the 19th century, parts of the monument were in poor condition, but the British Viceroy Lord Curzon remedied this with a thorough restoration that was completed in 1908. It was on this occasion that the current English-style lawns were laid in the complex’s garden.

During the Second World War and again in the 1960s and 1970s during battles with Pakistan, protective walls were erected around the Taj Mahal to minimize damage after possible attacks, but fortunately these were not used as they were prepared for. Recent threats include a lowering of the water table that could expose the wooden foundations under the Taj Mahal, which must stand in water. After all the centuries since Shah Jahan, however, the Taj Mahal still stands as a fantastic building and symbol of love.

Red Fort

Agra Fort, also known as the Red Fort, is an impressive structure that is more like a walled city than a fort. Its history started as a fortification, and it goes back at least to the 11th century. The current appearance, however, stems from later expansions during the time of the Great Moguls.

The fort was first mentioned in historical accounts in 1080 and it stood as a fortress for centuries until Sikander Lodi, the first Sultan of Delhi, moved his residence here around the year 1500. With Sikander Lodi, Agra achieved the status of a kind of second capital, and this continued under Lodi’s son Ibrahim, who reigned from here 1517-1526. Under Ibrahim Lodi, several palaces and other buildings were constructed in Agra Fort.

After the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, the Mughals captured Agra Fort and looted valuable treasures that included the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The victorious Mughal Babur moved into Ibrahim Lodi’s palace, thereby establishing the rule of the Mughal emperors. A few years later, another historic event took place in the fort, when the Great Mughal Humayun was crowned in 1530. In the following decades, there were battles over the important fortress and palace complex, which changed ownership several times.

The Hindu king Hem Chandra Vikramaditya captured Agra in 1555, defeating the armies of Humayun, who himself had just captured Agra Fort from the Suris. Hem Chandra, nicknamed Hemu, went towards Delhi, but lost here in the second battle of Panipat in 1556 to the Mughal Akbar. Realizing the considerable strategic importance of Agra, Akbar made Agra the capital of the kingdom and the fort his residence in 1558.

With Akbar, a large-scale reconstruction of the former brick fort began. Around 4,000 workers spent around eight years remodeling and expanding the fort, including the use of sandstone in the external decoration. Akbar’s fort was completed in 1573, while Akbar’s grandson, Shah Jahan, was the one who gave Agra Fort its approximate current appearance. He was also behind the nearby Taj Mahal and liked to build using white marble.

After Shah Jahan, it was only from the 18th century that the fort again came into the historical spotlight. Here it was conquered by the regents of Maharashtra in western India. It again changed hands several times before the British won over Maharashtra in 1803. In 1857, Agra Fort was again fought; it was during the Indian unrest that resulted in the winding down of the British East India Company’s rule of India in favor of direct rule by Britain.

The fort stands beautifully today as a reminder of Agra’s history and the time of the Mughals. There are entrance gates to Agra Fort from both the land side and from the river, and the most monumental is the Delhi Gate to the west, which dates from the time of the Mughal Akbar. The gate was built around 1568 as the regent’s formal entrance and at the same time as part of the colossal fortifications that make up Agra Fort.

After entering through the Delhi Gate, you meet a new line of defense in the form of the Elephant Gate/Elephant Gate/Hathi Pol, where stone elephants with riders stand and protect the fort. The entrance for visitors, however, is the Lahore Gate, which is also called the Amar Singh Gate, and here, too, you immediately see why Agra Fort is also called the Red Fort.

Within the walls of Agra Fort are a number of fine and interesting buildings. There are, for example, two audience halls, of which the Diwan-i-Am is closest to Lahore Gate. The Diwan-i-Am was a public audience hall and was built in a beautiful colonnaded design in 1628. To the east of it is the Emperor’s private audience hall, the Diwan-i-Khas, built in 1637. Behind the Diwan-i-Khas is the tower Musamman Burj facing the river Yamuna. It is said that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan died here after being imprisoned in Agra Fort by his son, Aurangzeb. From the Musamman Burj there is a view of the Taj Mahal, where Shah Jahan is buried.

North of the Diwan-i-Am are Agra Fort’s two mosques, the Pearl Mosque/Moti Masjid and the Nagina Masjid. Moti Masjid was built by Shah Jahan 1646-1653, while Nagina Masjid was built during Aurangzeb’s rule that lasted from 1658 to 1707.

Just to the east of the Lahore Gate entrance is the beautiful Jahangiri Mahal/جهانگیری محل, named after Emperor Jahangir who was crowned in Agra Fort in 1605. The palace was built by Emperor Babur and he named it after his grandson. The site was the residence of female members of the court, and it stands as the dominant building in the complex today. Next to Jahangir Mahal is Akbar’s Palace/Akbari Mahal, which was built in the 16th century.

Tomb of Akbar the Great

This tomb is a masterpiece of the many magnificent buildings of the Mughals. Akbar the Great was the third Mughal emperor and he ruled from 1556-1605. Akbar himself chose the site for his future mausoleum, and according to tradition in the North Indian region of the time, he began construction in his own lifetime.

Akbar’s son and subsequent Mughal emperor was Jahangir, who built the mausoleum in the years 1605-1613. The main entrance to the tomb is the southern gate building, which itself was built in a distinguished style and size. The style was inspired by the Great Gate/Buland Darwaza/बुलंद दरवाखा in Fatehpur Sikri and you can also see four marble minarets with chhatris on top. This was later repeated at the Taj Mahal elsewhere in Agra.

The central building with Akbar’s tomb stands in a walled square, and there is a gallery around the tomb. Like other Mughal mausoleums, Akbar’s cenotaph stands one storey above the tomb itself. You can see a lot of ornamentation and the primary materials are red sandstone and white marble.