The Taj Mahal is a white marble mausoleum in Agra, central India built by Shah Jahan for his late wife Mumtaz Mahal.
Mumtaz Mahal (born Arjumand Banu Begum) was a Persian princess who was the chief consort of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Their marriage took place on April 30, 1612, five years after the year of their betrothal and the pair was very much a love-match. She was her husband's constant companion and trusted confidant and in their nineteen years of marriage, they had fourteen children together (eight sons and six daughters).
Mumtaz Mahal was accompanying her husband on a military campaign in Burhanpur, Deccan (present-day Madhya Pradesh) when she went into labor. It was a prolonged labor of approximately 30 hours and the exhausted mother died from a postpartum hemorrhage on June 17, 1631 after giving birth to her fourteenth child, a daughter named Gauhar Ara Begum.
The Empress' body was temporarily buried at Burhanpur in a walled pleasure garden known as Zainabad. In the immediate aftermath of his bereavement, Shah Jahan was inconsolable and he went into secluded mourning for a year.
In December 1631, Mumtaz Mahal body's was disinterred and transported in a golden casket back to the Mughal Empire capital, Agra. There it was interred in a small building on the banks of the Yamuna River.
Shah Jahan stayed behind in Burhanpur to conclude the military campaign and while there, he commissioned the construction of a suitable mausoleum and funerary garden in Agra to be built in the memory of his wife.
Shah Jahan would spend the next two decades building his beloved wife's mausoleum, the Taj Mahal. It required the labor of 20,000 stone carvers, masons and artists from all over India and Central Asia. It is generally thought that Ustad Ahmad Lahauri was in charge of the construction.
The Taj Mahal was built with materials from all over Central and East Asia. So much white marble and precious stones was used in its construction that it nearly bankrupted the Mughal empire. Over 1,000 elephants were used to transport white marble from Rajasthan, jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China. In all, 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the building.
The principal mausoleum was completed in 1643 and the surrounding buildings and garden were finished a decade later.
In order to misguide Japanese bombers during World War II, the Taj Mahal was disguised with a huge scaffold which made it look like a stockpile of bamboos. The idea worked and was used again in 1971 at the time of Indo-Pak War.
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| Pixiebay |
Mumtaz Mahal (born Arjumand Banu Begum) was a Persian princess who was the chief consort of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Their marriage took place on April 30, 1612, five years after the year of their betrothal and the pair was very much a love-match. She was her husband's constant companion and trusted confidant and in their nineteen years of marriage, they had fourteen children together (eight sons and six daughters).
Mumtaz Mahal was accompanying her husband on a military campaign in Burhanpur, Deccan (present-day Madhya Pradesh) when she went into labor. It was a prolonged labor of approximately 30 hours and the exhausted mother died from a postpartum hemorrhage on June 17, 1631 after giving birth to her fourteenth child, a daughter named Gauhar Ara Begum.
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| Portrait of Mumtaz Mahal |
The Empress' body was temporarily buried at Burhanpur in a walled pleasure garden known as Zainabad. In the immediate aftermath of his bereavement, Shah Jahan was inconsolable and he went into secluded mourning for a year.
In December 1631, Mumtaz Mahal body's was disinterred and transported in a golden casket back to the Mughal Empire capital, Agra. There it was interred in a small building on the banks of the Yamuna River.
Shah Jahan stayed behind in Burhanpur to conclude the military campaign and while there, he commissioned the construction of a suitable mausoleum and funerary garden in Agra to be built in the memory of his wife.
Shah Jahan would spend the next two decades building his beloved wife's mausoleum, the Taj Mahal. It required the labor of 20,000 stone carvers, masons and artists from all over India and Central Asia. It is generally thought that Ustad Ahmad Lahauri was in charge of the construction.
The Taj Mahal was built with materials from all over Central and East Asia. So much white marble and precious stones was used in its construction that it nearly bankrupted the Mughal empire. Over 1,000 elephants were used to transport white marble from Rajasthan, jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China. In all, 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the building.
The principal mausoleum was completed in 1643 and the surrounding buildings and garden were finished a decade later.
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| The actual tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan in the lower level. Donelson |
In order to misguide Japanese bombers during World War II, the Taj Mahal was disguised with a huge scaffold which made it look like a stockpile of bamboos. The idea worked and was used again in 1971 at the time of Indo-Pak War.
The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million rupees, which is around 52.8 billion Indian rupees ($827 million US) based on 2015 values.
The Taj Mahal was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, for being "the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage".
It attracts 7–8 million visitors a year. Most tourists visit the Taj Mahal in the cooler months of October, November and February.
It is forbidden for aircraft to fly over the Taj Mahal.
The Taj Mahal's white marble exterior is gradually turning yellow due to high levels of air pollution.
Source Irancivilcenter
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