India’s shrine to love

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 23

India’s shrine to love

Our first glimpse of India’s most famous edifice was from the fifth floor restaurant of an Agra hotel. Only the tops of the white dpme and minarets were visible, clusters seemingly thrusting mushroom-like through a lawn of trees a couple of kilometres away. Even from this distance, the Taj Mahal exuded an aura of mystique and rare beauty. All round our view was shrouded by the now familiar heat haze of noontime India, yet, there, shining crystal clear in the surrounding haze, the Taj beckoned as crisply as the beacon of a lighthouse. By the time we arrived in the grounds an hour or so later, the sun was flooding the front of the magnificent building, creating a dazzling, almost hypnotic glare against the polished white marble. “You are looking at the most beautiful building in the universe,” our guide proclaimed with pride, “but you are not' seeing it at its best. For in the morning it shines like silver; in the evening it turns to gold in the setting sun; and in the full moon at night it glows like a pearl hanging from the heavens.” Writers for almost three centuries have searched to find apt words to describe this monument of an emperor’s great love for his queen. The writers’ dilemma was, I think, most adequately summed up by the late Lord Roberts: “I will not attempt to describe the indescribable,” he wrote after visiting the Taj Mahal many years ago. “Neither words nor pencil could give to the most imaginative reader the slightest idea of the allsatisfying beauty and purity of this glorious conception. To those who have not seen it, I would say ‘Go to India. The Taj alone is well worth the journey.’ ” The legend of the Taj Mausoleum of the Mughal Empress Mumtaz Mahal is as rich and moving as the building is itself. It tells of a young prince’s love for a beautiful woman; of how she was forced to marry another man. Heart-broken, the prince vowed to wait for his beloved’s freedom; it came after her first husband was assassinated. Shah Jahan and the widowed Mumtaz

The first of three articles by LES BLOXHAM, travel editor, on his recent visit to India.

were married in 1611. He bestowed upon her the title, Nur Jahan — “Light of the World” — and made her joint ruler of his realm. Their love flourished and during the following 19 years Mumtaz produced 14 children. Then tragedy struck: Mumtaz died minutes after giving birth to their fourteenth child, a daughter. According to the legend, just before her death she heard the cries of the child in the womb and urgently sent for her husband. “Sire,” she told him, “I believe that no mother has ever been known to survive the birth of a child so heard and I fear my end is near. Oh King, I have lived with you in joy and. sorrow. God has made you a great emperor and given you many worlds to rule. Now there are only two things I have to say: do not take another wife, and build me a tomb to make my name memorable.” The king promised his dying wife that no-one would ever supplant her in his palace or his heart, and that he would enshrine her remains in a mausoleum which “would be a marvel for all ages to come, such as none had ever seen before, and which would be the most beautiful of all tombs in the whole wide world.” And so the Taj took shape. For 20 years, 20,000 artisans from many countries including Italy, France, Austria, and Persia worked to complete the architectural masterpiece. Elephants hauled 300,000 tonnes of white marble from Jaipur, 250 kilometres to the west. Priceless gems and other jewels were used to embroider patterns inset in the marble. In 1653 the Taj was completed, and Mumtaz’s body lifted from her temporary tomb to her final resting

place: the jewel was, at last, in its casket. Shah Jahan died in 1666, 32 years after the death of his wife. Sadly, his dying wish of a second great mausoleum of black marble immediately opposite the white Taj on the south bank of the Yamuna River never grew beyond its foundations. Also, his dream of a “Bridge of Love” spanning the river and linking

his black Taj with Mumtaz’s white Taj never materialised, and it remains today purely as part of the legend. Instead, Shah Jahan was laid to rest alongside the tomb of his beloved with the following epitaph: No later light has lightened up my heaven, No second mom has ever shone for me; All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given, All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.