MONUMENT OF LOVE ETERNAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

MONUMENT OF LOVE ETERNAL

Situated about a mile from Agra, South India, is the Taj Mahal, the most magnificent masoleum In the world, and one of the most beautiful buildings ever constructed by man. Round it is centred the story of the love of Shah Jehan for Arjumand Banu, Mumtaz-i-Mahal, one of the greatest romances of history. This magnificent building was erected by the Shah in memory of his beautiful wife, Mumtaz-i-Mahal. at a time when women were regarded, in India at least, as little but the playthings of their owners.

Arjumand Banu was the daughter of Asaf Khan, and niece of the famous Nur-jehan, the wife of Jehangir. She was married to Shah Jehan, Mogul emperor of Delhi (1627-1858), in 1615, 12 years before the succession of her husband to the throne. It is told that Shah Jehan, worried over some affair of State, was on one occasion about

to drink a jug of poisoned wine, when his beautiful wife came on the scene and dashed the deadly draught from his hand.

In 1629, Mumtaz4-Mahal died in child-bed at Buhanpore. Crushed with grief, Shah Jehan determined that his lost one should have such a memorial as neither man nor woman had ever had in the history of the world before.

So he counselled with Astad Isa. a cunning architect, and bade him prepare as noble a design as his imagination could furnish. The result was th) beautiful Taj Mahal, which now stands, as nothing else in the world stands for the great and lasting devotion of a man for a woman.

Some idea of the cost of erectioii can be gained from the fact that apart from materials, to which half of Asia contributed her marbles, the masons alone were paid the sum of about £600,000. The cost of the scaffolding was as great as that of the tomb itself, because there were at that time no trees nearby from which timber could be obtained for this purpose. The building was commenced in 16o**. 20,000 men being employed for p years. Pierced screens in the win dows and doorways, the coloured inlays in delicate patterns, the letters inlaid with black marble, the carvings in low relief, and the carved panels and mouldings, and the other details are all perfect in their way, all appropriate in their application, and ingenious in their design. Inside, beneath the dome, there is, around the tomb? of the two lovers, an exquisitely beautiful pierced marble trellis, heavily inlaid w ith precious and semi-precious stones. The light is admitted only through double screens of vbite marble trellis-work of the most deli cate design, one on the outer and onion the inner face of the walls. In ° Dr climate this wrould produce nearl -j complete darkness, but in India, and in a building wholly composed of white marble, this was required to temp*? the glare that otherwise would been intolerable. The tomb does not inspire solemnity or veneration, but _ conveys the impression of delicate ana graceful beauty, of elegance, and even effeminacy, so befitting the resting place of a woman who was the objeo of “ eternal love.”

The body of Arjumand was placed under the centre of the dome in place of honour. Years afterward; w r hen Shah Jehan himself, a broken disappointed and dethroned man, cam to die at his own son’s prison in tE' fort he had himself built at Agra, tK laid his body beside that of his beloved mistress. Not even they dareto break the tradition of love that tn Taj was built to immortalise.