Mumtaz Mahal

He made a beautiful album for his beloved wife, Nadira Begum.

Uh, much to the, um, oft, uh, believed, uh, sociological stories about all the rulers having many wives, the two people you have n-named, uh, whether it's Shah Jahan, his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child.

So you can imagine.

18th pregnancy.

Mm

... which was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, to house the tomb of his late wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself.

So why do we have Neoclassicism to thank? Well, in the 18th and 19th centuries, people really idealized...

And Neoclassicism itself, as a movement, sort of idealized Greek and Roman forms-

Each screen centers on a particular character in this, uh, historical period of time.

You know, we have Shah Jahan, his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who's entombed in the Taj Mahal.

We have two of, two of his sons and a gardener.

And these are the kind of central figures of the, of the story, although there's 20 characters in total.

Jahan had married the niece of the terrible Empress Nur Mahal.

Mumtaz Mahal had inherited much of the beauty of her aunt and might have developed something of her ambition and unscrupulousness, but Jahan was a stronger man than his father and had his ideas of the proper place of woman in politics.

He would not let his wife meddle with the imperial government, but he loved her very dearly and when she died resolved that she should have the most magnificent tomb in India.

Hence the Taj, by common consent the tomb as distinct from all others in the world.

Jahan had married the niece of the terrible Empress Nur Mahal.

Mumtaz Mahal had inherited much of the beauty of her aunt and might have developed something of her ambition and unscrupulousness but Jahan was a stronger man than his father and had his ideas of the proper place of woman in politics.

He would not let his wife meddle with the imperial government, but he loved her very dearly and when she died resolved that she should have the most magnificent tomb in India.

Hence the Taj, by common consent, the tomb as distinct from all others in the world.

This is a monumental structure associated with personal love and loss.

The Taj Mahal was commissioned by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his departed wife Mumtaz Mahal.

The monument also holds the tomb of Shah Jahan.

What happens when grief becomes architecture? Private loss is transformed into something enormous and enduring.

Mount Auburn Cemetery, established in Massachusetts in 1831, is an early American example of this approach, combining winding paths, horticulture, sculpture, and burial into a designed landscape.

A memorial garden can even tell us something about the person being remembered.

At the Cesar Chavez National Monument, for example, the memorial garden surrounding Chavez and his wife Helen's graves incorporates roses representing values associated with Chavez, as well as grape vines connected to the grape strike and boycott.

The garden isn't simply a place where someone is buried.

Khosru, touched by this sympathy, went off to his brother who embraced him so affectionately that he strangled him.

Nur Mahal looked upon this proceeding with approval since it left only one life between her son-in-law and the throne Shah Jihan must be removed and all would be well but Jihan as his little comedy with his poor blind brother testified was both crafty and determined it became a game of pull devil pull baker and Shah Jihan won coming to the throne on the death of his father he put out the eyes of his brother Nur Mahal's son-in-law impartially strangled all his other blood relations and cast into prison the dowager empress here through long years this Catherine of Hindustan ate out her lionheart comforted only by the memory of the days when she had been first at the council board had led the imperial troops into battle and had caused her name to be struck on the coin issued from the imperial mint the first and last time till the epoch of Victoria that a woman's name was so honoured in India Nur Mahal as will appear from this simple story was a woman of strong family affection and it was in obedience to this impulse she built this great mausoleum Itmud-ud-Daulah for the entombment of her father she sleeps by his side life's fitful fever over only her story left to light up a lurid page in the early history of India the Taj was built by Shah Jihan apart from its architectural beauties it is the most magnificent tribute ever raised by man to the memory of a dead wife Jihan had married the niece of the terrible empress Nur Mahal Mumtaz-i-Mahal had inherited much of the beauty of her aunt and might have developed something of her ambition and unscrupulousness but Jihan was a stronger man than his father and had his ideas of the proper place of woman in politics he would not let his wife meddle with the imperial government but he loved her very dearly and when she died resolved that she should have the most magnificent tomb in India hence the Taj by common consent the tomb as distinct from all others in the world like the fort the Taj stands on the banks of the Jumna seen from its marble terrace the river second in sanctity only to the Ganges presents a strange appearance its wide bed is for five-sixths of its extent dry land the enfeebled current running through a narrow channel on the other side under the walls of the Taj a great field of wheat is growing among the grey sandbanks in the very middle of the riverbed when the rains come in June the newly born river will rush downward in a mighty stream washing high up the walls of the Taj and the cornfield will lie some fathoms deep in the meanwhile the harvest will be garnered in and when next autumn the river dries up again a rich bed will be ready to receive the sowing for a new harvest I suppose there is no other instance of a river so rich in gifts as this to give fish at its flood and corn at its ebb like the minarets at Benares the Taj dominates the city its white domes are seen almost from every point of view it is approached through a magnificent gateway built of red sandstone elaborately carved and eloquent with sentences from the Koran at the end of an avenue of dark cypress trees the Taj reveals itself it is built of white marble raised upon a platform of red sandstone the marble as purely white today as when it was polished the building realizes to a great extent the structure of the new Jerusalem which John in his dream at Patmos beheld when the first heaven and the first earth had passed away the great city whose foundations were garnished with all manner of precious stones the first a jasper and the twelfth an amethyst the uttermost ends of the earth were put under tribute to furnish building materials to the Taj Jaipur sent white marble the rare yellow marble came from the banks of the Nerbudda and the black from Charco China contributed the crystal the Punjab sent jasper the cornelian came from Baghdad turquoises from Tibet and agate from Yemen Ceylon loaded the emperor's commissioners with lapis lazuli the Red Sea was dragged for coral Bundlekund sent garnets Poona produced its diamonds Nerbudda sent rock spar Martine yielded its famous philosopher's stone Gwalior paid tribute in lodestone Vilayat in chalcedony Lanka in sapphires whilst Persia presented onyx and amethyst to her powerful neighbour This rare wealth of precious stones is disposed over the marble with infinite skill and artistic taste where the marble ends and the inlaying begins is to be told only by the varied color happily the Taj has escaped the fate of the palaces within the fort the British soldier flushed with victory and animated by extra rations of grog and newborn love of art has not come poking round the walls with point of bayonet nor has the Jat swooped down on the place nor the Maharata overrun it it is as perfect as when Nur Jahan was laid here and looking upon its perfectness Shah Jahan conceived the notion of building a similar mausoleum on the other side of the river connecting the two by a silver bridge the grave of the beautiful Nur Jahan is dug in a vault underneath the level floor by which access is obtained to the cenotaph a flight of marble steps leads to the solemn gloom of the chamber the light falling like dim break of day full on the end of the tomb bearing the inscription of the empress's name this is the crowning beauty of the idea of the immortal architect the chamber all gloom and only the name of the dead wife illumined by the soft daylight struggling down the staircase whilst we were enjoying the beauty of the inlaid work easily enough distinguished when the eye grows accustomed to the half light of the chamber there came bustling down the steps an anna-touting intruder with a lantern whose vulgar farthing light he shed upon the inscription of the tomb and proposed to carry round the chamber so that we might rub our noses against the masterpieces of the nameless artists he was a sepoy and i confess to finding it difficult to repress the wish that he had died during the mutiny he and a worthy colleague with another lantern were fluttering around the upper chamber when we arrived pestering visitors to note this and that to be seen only with their lantern and taking all the graciousness out of the place the authorities who take such infinite care of the taj should confer a last favour upon the public by having these obnoxious pests removed shah jahan never began his mausoleum on the other side of the river wanting too early a tomb for himself he was laid by the side of his lost bride the tomb being magnificent enough even for emperor it stands on the left-hand side leaving nur jahan's undisturbed in the centre and bears an inscription of which the following is a rough translation quote the magnificent tomb of the king inhabitant of the two heavens rid devan and kul the most sublime sitter on the throne in the starry heavens dweller in paradise shah jahan badshah ghazi peace to his remains heaven is for him his death took place the twenty-sixth day of rudjub in the year ten seventy-six of the hijri a.d. sixteen sixty-five from this transitory world eternity has marched him off to the next end quote each grave is covered by an immense block of marble exquisitely inlaid a marble screen carved so delicately that it looks like a web of lacework encircles the cenotaphs that stand in the centre of the marble hall above the vault the walls of this larger chamber are inlaid to the roof which rises in a dome above the cenotaphs this marble dome possesses amidst other beauties the most melodious echo ever heard a single note sung below it is repeated as if by an angelic choir dying away in the faintest far-off trill the building of the taj occupied twenty thousand workmen twenty-two years and cost three millions sterling even in the age when there were no trades unions and no possibility of strikes some details are preserved in a persian manuscript of contemporary date the yellow marble cost four pounds per square yard the black marble cost nine pounds the crystal fifty-seven pounds the lapis lazuli one hundred and fifteen pounds whatever might have been the wages of the workmen the masters of art were paid on an imperial scale considering the value of the money at that date the overseer was paid at the rate of one hundred pounds a month a similar wage being allotted to the chief illuminator and the master mason it is perhaps interesting to add that the platform of red sandstone on which the taj stands measures nine hundred and sixty-four by three hundred and twenty-nine feet that the terrace of white marble built on this platform and from which the beautiful structure rises is three hundred and thirteen feet square that the roof is uplifted seventy feet from the terrace that the dome seventy feet in diameter is one hundred and twenty feet high and that the gilt crescent which surmounts the dome is two hundred and sixty feet from the ground the perfection of the architect's art is told in the fact that one looking upon the building does not think whether it is large or small or of any geometrical shape It is simply perfect something to be seen not once, but a hundred times in all the varied aspects of weather and hour.

It is a chameleon among architectural works in the early morning, whilst dawn is breaking, it seems colored a light blue rose tinted beneath the rising sun, dazzling white at noontide, violet color before an impending storm, crimson at sunset, pearly white under the moonlight.

Always a thing of beauty, a joy forever.

It is Shah Jahan.

Did you know that the Taj Mahal was built in the 17th century to commemorate Shah Jahan's third and favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died during the birth of their 14th child? What do you think about that? I knew that, actually, but I just didn't know his name.

Did you really? 14th child, third and favourite wife? Yeah, I read that on a plaque.

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