Taj Mahal - The Source of Inspiration and Romantic Fanaticism

The Taj Mahal is a source of inspiration and romantic fanaticism throughout the world, with the story of how it came to be drawing millions to view its magnificence every year. Like any epic love story that has been given nearly 400 years to ferment, the details have been embellished and rumours and myths have become fact, so now it is hard to say for sure what is true or what is not.

The story all starts in 1592 with the birth of Prince Shihab-ud-din Muhammad Khurram who would later become Shah Jahan: the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire in South Asia from 1628 until 1658. The story goes that when Prince Khurram was 14 years old, he was walking through the city bazaar, accompanied by a string of courtiers, when he caught a glimpse of a girl selling silk and glass beads. It was love at first sight and so he went back to his father and declared his desire to marry the girl. Her name was Arjumand Banu Begum, the niece of Prince Khurram's stepmother and while they were betrothed that same year, they had to wait 5 years (and an extra wife for the prince) before a favourable date was set by the court astrologers.

Over the next 19 years they were inseparable and Arjumand accompanied the prince on his military campaigns (even while heavily pregnant) and bore him 14 children. She was his closest friend and advisor and she also encouraged him to perform acts of charity and benevolence towards the weak and needy which led to her being much loved by the people of the empire. When he succeeded to the throne and became Shah Jahan, he also gave his wife the regal title of Mumtaz Mahal meaning "Jewel of the Palace".

It was during the birth of her final child in 1631 that the story takes a tragic turn. Mumtaz had been accompanying her husband while he was fighting a campaign in the Deccan Plateau when she went into labour which resulted in severe complications and her unfortunate death. Her body was temporarily buried at Burhanpur in a walled pleasure garden but Shah Jahan never intended for this to be her final resting spot so her body was disinterred in December 1631 and transported in a golden casket and escorted by one of her sons back to Agra. There it was interred in a small building on the banks of the Yamuna River to await it's new home. Shah Jahan stayed behind in Burhanpur to conclude the military campaign but while there, he began planning the design and construction of a suitable mausoleum and funerary garden for his wife. It was a task that would take more than 22 years and 20,000 workers to complete: The Taj Mahal.

In the immediate aftermath of Mumtaz's death, the emperor was reportedly inconsolable and one of the more popular stories tells how he went into secluded mourning for a year. When he appeared again, his hair had turned white, his back was bent, and his face worn as he felt he could not go on living without his beloved. While the story ends in 1631, its memory lives on in the Taj Mahal; a symbol of eternal love. English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold best describes it as "Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor's love wrought in living stones."