February 10, 2010 • 12 mins
The Taj Mahal was built by the Mogul ruler Shah Jahan as a memorial to his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. In this episode, Sarah and Katie delve into the stories of one of the world's most opulent mausoleums.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downy, And since Valentine's
Day is coming up, we decided we'd like to do
a romantic type of episode, so we settled on the
(00:23):
idea of the building of the taj Mahal, which has
always been considered a great love story. But is it
is our question to you, and we try to find
that out today. So the taj Mahal was built by
Shah Jahan and he was the seventeenth century Mughal Emperor
and the Mughal Empire included most of South Asia. It's
really huge holding. Um. He's the fifth ruler in his dynasty,
(00:49):
which lasts about two hundred years and until the Persian
invasion in seventeen thirty nine. And his title means Emperor
of the World or King of the world, so he's
a pretty big deal. I say he was born Prince
Karan and was descended from Genghis Khan, tamer Lane and
a Kabar the Great. His father was named Jonger. And
(01:09):
we'd like to preface this by saying a lot of
these words are a bit difficult for us to pronounce,
so you're welcome to see our blog round up on Friday,
um that blogs dot house, stuffworks dot com and see
him all spelled out there so they'll actually make sense
as opposed to when I mangle them. He was the
favorite of his father's son's growing up, even though he
wasn't the oldest. He commanded his father's army for many
(01:32):
years and was very successful, and that's how he got
the title of shah Jahan, which was pretty amazing for
someone who wasn't even crowned to be called king of
the world. Yeah, definitely. But then his father gets sick
and the sons begin to fight with each other because
there's not this clear, definitive learne of succession, and he's
got this real evil fairy tale like stepmother nor Johan,
(01:54):
who her name means light of the world, and she
switches her allegiances to a younger brother, um One, who
she marries off to her daughter from another marriage, and
she's planning on ruling herself, almost using him as a puppet.
So shaw Johan rebelled and he led an army against
his father and stepmother. It didn't work, but when his
(02:14):
father died in the sixteen seven, shah Jahan came back
to agra Um. His only older brother that was left
had died of drink and he had his other rivals,
like his younger brothers, executed, So there's a nice family
story for you. He spared nor Johan but sent her
to Lahore. But while nord Johan may have been an
evil stepmother, she was also part of shah Jahan's love story.
(02:37):
She definitely was, and that begins when shah Jahan is
fifteen years old. He meets this beautiful girl, our jamand Banu,
and its love at first sight for both of them.
The marriage isn't arranged until five years later, but it's
actually set up by evil stepmother nor Johan, who is
a relative of the girls. And she was given the
(02:57):
name muntazma Hall which means althood of the Palace. And
she was only one of his wives who did have
a few, but she was his favorite. She came with
him and all of his military campaigns. They were completely
devoted to one another and had several children together. Sadly,
in their nineteenth year of marriage, muntaz Mahal comes with
her husband on yet another campaign and She's in her
(03:20):
ninth month of pregnancy at the time she dies from
complications of childbirth, having their fourteen child fourteen kids in
nineteen years. Seven of their kids lived to adulthood, and
this baby is one of them. So after she died,
according to legend, Shah Jahan's beard turned gray and he
never again took pleasure in anything in life. But another
(03:43):
part of the story goes that when she was dying,
mumtaz Mahal asked for the most beautiful mausoleum that had
ever been built, and Shah Jahan complied and gave us
the tash Mahal. So I'm sure everybody's seen a picture
of the brilliant taj Mahal, but it's located in Agra
in Attar Pradesh, and our words can't do it justice.
(04:04):
I mean, if you haven't seen a picture, go find
phone immediately, and what you've probably seen is the mausoleum itself,
the giant white marble building that's topped by a dome
with four minarets around it, and it really is gorgeous.
It seems to change colors during the day. It reflects
different shades depending on the sun and the moon and
the ornamental pool in front of it reflects the mall.
(04:27):
But there's also a mosque and it's jowob which mirrors
the mosque. They're made of this reddish sandstone and there's
a garden in a gateway, and I like this detail
about the minarets. They're angled slightly outward so that in
case of an earthquake they won't fall in and crush
the tomb. So clever architecture there, and it's a mix
(04:48):
of Indian, Persian and Islamic architectural styles. Constructions started in
sixteen thirty two, but it took twenty two years for
twenty thousand laborers to finish it, and including architects, calligraphers
and stone cutters from all over They bring in the
marble from a hundred miles away and semi precious and
(05:09):
precious stones mind from all around the region. And one
signature of the taj Mahal is the pietra dura and
uh you make what looks like a painting from colored
stones inlaid in another material and they're all these amazing stones.
Je lapis amethyst and for the taj Mahal, you'll see
(05:29):
it lots of geometric designs and also flowers done in
the style. There's also a lot of lapidary, which is
when you carve or cut designs out of the actual stones.
Um lots of flowers carved out of marble, irises, daffodils, lilies, poppies, tulips.
It's really beautiful. And they're also versus from the Quran
(05:51):
on columns and calligraphy in this black onyx script, and
another testament to the craftsmanship here the letters actually increase
with height so that they look uniform when you're standing
below them. The court poets wrote some beautiful stuff about
the taj Mahal, but one verse that I liked was
they set stone flowers in the marble that, by their color,
(06:13):
if not their perfume, surpass real flowers, And if you
see the pictures, they really do. Part of the legend
of this whole building of the taj Mahal is that
Shah Jahan had the craftsman's hands chopped off so that
they'd never be able to make anything like this ever again.
But considering that, another part of the story is that
he'd supposedly planned to build a matching taj Jahan for
(06:35):
himself across the Yun muna river that would be connected
by a bridge to the taj Mahal. That's not true, yeah,
because that wouldn't make any sense. No, you wouldn't want
to kill all your highly skilled craftsmen before you got
your own mausoleum on the ground. And you'd better believe
that it was incredibly expensive to make anything this lavish
and gorgeous. As much money as he had, and it
(06:57):
said that Shah Jahan may have had the best jewel
collection that ever existed, it wasn't quite enough. Shah Jahan
at the same time was carrying on a lot of
very expensive wars, and he was constructing a new capital,
shah Jehanabad, which is now Deli, and he has to
raise taxes to pay for it consequently, which nobody ever
(07:18):
likes that. And on top of it all, he has
to deal with his son ron Zeb, who it must
run in the family is rebelling against his father. In
sixteen fifty eight, Shah Jahan's rule is over. His son
has won this battle and beheaded his brothers, and he
sent his father to prison in the Red Fort in
Agra and so much poetically. From there, Shah Jahan could
(07:40):
see the Taj Mahal. He was buried with Moontaz Mahal,
and you can tell that he didn't plan to be
there because this part doesn't look like anything else. And
some people think he was honoring his father by putting
him in this amazing mausoleum, but other folks think that
he was actually spiting his father because symmetry is reserved
for God Islam, and so it might have bothered his
(08:02):
son that the taj Mahal was just so perfect, everything
is so symmetrical, and he tries to mess him up
by putting the two men and throwing everything off. It's
the only asymmetrical element in there. If you were really O. C. D.
It would probably drive you crazy looking at this tomb chamber.
We're fortunate that the taj Mahal became a UNESCO World
(08:24):
Heritage Site in nineteen eighty three, because for a while
there it didn't look so great. No, by the mid
nineteenth century, the taj Mahal was abandoned and in this
terrible state of disrepair, and some of the British collennialists
were actually looting stuff from the from the taj Mahal,
the precious stones, the semi precious stones, there's potentially a
(08:46):
myth that the first Governor General, British Governor General of
India actually planned to dismantle the taj and sell off
the marble, which would be terrible. Can people do that
with the Colosseum and well the Pyramids. All the limestone
has been plundered except the very tip. But eventually it
(09:08):
becomes a pleasure resort for the British and Lord Craizone
is especially notable for helping preserve it and launching a
major conservation effort. And by the mid nineteen nineties that
we're having problems with, you know, the environmental effects of
the air on the stone, and so the Indian government
(09:28):
launched this multimillion dollar restoration effort which is still going
on to scrub the exterior, restore the red sandstone main gates,
and replace the semi precious inlays Um. In the long term,
they might even try to recreate the original gardens. Patash
Ma Hall gets two point two million visitors a year,
and a lot of them are honeymooners. Princess Diana and
(09:50):
Prince Charles were supposed to celebrate their tenure anniversary there,
but she ended up going by herself and you know,
sitting on this bench that now people love to pose by.
So that brings us back to our question. Is the
taj Mahal a monument to love? And opinions on this
are a little mixed. According to an article I read
by Shane Tasker, Gandhi thought it was a monument to
(10:12):
oppression vs. N. Paul said it was building without a function.
And there's one historical revisionist P. N. Oak who's tried
to say that the taj Mahal was built by a
Hindu king and not by Shah Jahan, who was a Muslim,
And he says it was a Hindu temple to Shiva.
But we're going to go ahead and say that's a
crackpot theory. Yeah. All this Huxley even he did not
(10:34):
think much of the taj Mahal at all. He said
that Marble I perceived covers a multitude of sins. So
it's a real cut down for this temple, I'd say.
But we're going to go with a quote we keep
finding in our research from a poet Rabindra Nath take
Or who said, let the splendor of the diamond, pearl
and ruby vanish like the magic shimmer of the rainbow.
(10:56):
Only let this one tear drop. The taj Mahal glistened
spotlessly bright on the cheek of time. So I think
Katie and I are putting our votes in the camp
that the taj Mahal is a symbol of love. We're
in the love story camp, yes, And that brings us
to listener mail. Our first email is from Tori and Tori,
I hope that I'm pronouncing your name right, but she wrote,
(11:19):
I'm a podcast subscriber on iTunes and I have to
thank you for the podcast about the Opium Wars. I'm
a college student. In my final in East Asian History
included an essay about the Opium Wars. Your descriptions matched
our notes so closely that I was able to listen
a few times and write my essay thoroughly. I received
the best grade in the class thanks to you. You
have a listener for life. So this is obviously an
(11:41):
awesome email and we're glad that we were success able
to help you out. And we got another email from
Dave in St. Louis about Traveler and Little Sorrel from
our podcast on History's Greatest of battle Horses, and he says,
just in case fellow listeners wanted to pay their respects
to both of these famous Confederate mounts, it can be
done in one trip. It turns out that in order
(12:02):
to get to v M I, you have to pass
through Washington and Lees Campus, he said. In fact, you
even passed right by Lee Chapel. So even in death,
little Sorel is not more than a short mile away
from Traveler. So thanks to Dave for that one, and
going back to our Valentine's Day theme. If you would
like to read more about how love works, go to
(12:22):
our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com,
and if you'd like to follow us on Twitter, we're
at Missed in History. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com and
be sure to check out the stuff you Missed in
History glass blog on the how stuff Works dot com
one page
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downy, And since Valentine's
Day is coming up, we decided we'd like to do
a romantic type of episode, so we settled on the
(00:23):
idea of the building of the taj Mahal, which has
always been considered a great love story. But is it
is our question to you, and we try to find
that out today. So the taj Mahal was built by
Shah Jahan and he was the seventeenth century Mughal Emperor
and the Mughal Empire included most of South Asia. It's
really huge holding. Um. He's the fifth ruler in his dynasty,
(00:49):
which lasts about two hundred years and until the Persian
invasion in seventeen thirty nine. And his title means Emperor
of the World or King of the world, so he's
a pretty big deal. I say he was born Prince
Karan and was descended from Genghis Khan, tamer Lane and
a Kabar the Great. His father was named Jonger. And
(01:09):
we'd like to preface this by saying a lot of
these words are a bit difficult for us to pronounce,
so you're welcome to see our blog round up on Friday,
um that blogs dot house, stuffworks dot com and see
him all spelled out there so they'll actually make sense
as opposed to when I mangle them. He was the
favorite of his father's son's growing up, even though he
wasn't the oldest. He commanded his father's army for many
(01:32):
years and was very successful, and that's how he got
the title of shah Jahan, which was pretty amazing for
someone who wasn't even crowned to be called king of
the world. Yeah, definitely. But then his father gets sick
and the sons begin to fight with each other because
there's not this clear, definitive learne of succession, and he's
got this real evil fairy tale like stepmother nor Johan,
(01:54):
who her name means light of the world, and she
switches her allegiances to a younger brother, um One, who
she marries off to her daughter from another marriage, and
she's planning on ruling herself, almost using him as a puppet.
So shaw Johan rebelled and he led an army against
his father and stepmother. It didn't work, but when his
(02:14):
father died in the sixteen seven, shah Jahan came back
to agra Um. His only older brother that was left
had died of drink and he had his other rivals,
like his younger brothers, executed, So there's a nice family
story for you. He spared nor Johan but sent her
to Lahore. But while nord Johan may have been an
evil stepmother, she was also part of shah Jahan's love story.
(02:37):
She definitely was, and that begins when shah Jahan is
fifteen years old. He meets this beautiful girl, our jamand Banu,
and its love at first sight for both of them.
The marriage isn't arranged until five years later, but it's
actually set up by evil stepmother nor Johan, who is
a relative of the girls. And she was given the
(02:57):
name muntazma Hall which means althood of the Palace. And
she was only one of his wives who did have
a few, but she was his favorite. She came with
him and all of his military campaigns. They were completely
devoted to one another and had several children together. Sadly,
in their nineteenth year of marriage, muntaz Mahal comes with
her husband on yet another campaign and She's in her
(03:20):
ninth month of pregnancy at the time she dies from
complications of childbirth, having their fourteen child fourteen kids in
nineteen years. Seven of their kids lived to adulthood, and
this baby is one of them. So after she died,
according to legend, Shah Jahan's beard turned gray and he
never again took pleasure in anything in life. But another
(03:43):
part of the story goes that when she was dying,
mumtaz Mahal asked for the most beautiful mausoleum that had
ever been built, and Shah Jahan complied and gave us
the tash Mahal. So I'm sure everybody's seen a picture
of the brilliant taj Mahal, but it's located in Agra
in Attar Pradesh, and our words can't do it justice.
(04:04):
I mean, if you haven't seen a picture, go find
phone immediately, and what you've probably seen is the mausoleum itself,
the giant white marble building that's topped by a dome
with four minarets around it, and it really is gorgeous.
It seems to change colors during the day. It reflects
different shades depending on the sun and the moon and
the ornamental pool in front of it reflects the mall.
(04:27):
But there's also a mosque and it's jowob which mirrors
the mosque. They're made of this reddish sandstone and there's
a garden in a gateway, and I like this detail
about the minarets. They're angled slightly outward so that in
case of an earthquake they won't fall in and crush
the tomb. So clever architecture there, and it's a mix
(04:48):
of Indian, Persian and Islamic architectural styles. Constructions started in
sixteen thirty two, but it took twenty two years for
twenty thousand laborers to finish it, and including architects, calligraphers
and stone cutters from all over They bring in the
marble from a hundred miles away and semi precious and
(05:09):
precious stones mind from all around the region. And one
signature of the taj Mahal is the pietra dura and
uh you make what looks like a painting from colored
stones inlaid in another material and they're all these amazing stones.
Je lapis amethyst and for the taj Mahal, you'll see
(05:29):
it lots of geometric designs and also flowers done in
the style. There's also a lot of lapidary, which is
when you carve or cut designs out of the actual stones.
Um lots of flowers carved out of marble, irises, daffodils, lilies, poppies, tulips.
It's really beautiful. And they're also versus from the Quran
(05:51):
on columns and calligraphy in this black onyx script, and
another testament to the craftsmanship here the letters actually increase
with height so that they look uniform when you're standing
below them. The court poets wrote some beautiful stuff about
the taj Mahal, but one verse that I liked was
they set stone flowers in the marble that, by their color,
(06:13):
if not their perfume, surpass real flowers, And if you
see the pictures, they really do. Part of the legend
of this whole building of the taj Mahal is that
Shah Jahan had the craftsman's hands chopped off so that
they'd never be able to make anything like this ever again.
But considering that, another part of the story is that
he'd supposedly planned to build a matching taj Jahan for
(06:35):
himself across the Yun muna river that would be connected
by a bridge to the taj Mahal. That's not true, yeah,
because that wouldn't make any sense. No, you wouldn't want
to kill all your highly skilled craftsmen before you got
your own mausoleum on the ground. And you'd better believe
that it was incredibly expensive to make anything this lavish
and gorgeous. As much money as he had, and it
(06:57):
said that Shah Jahan may have had the best jewel
collection that ever existed, it wasn't quite enough. Shah Jahan
at the same time was carrying on a lot of
very expensive wars, and he was constructing a new capital,
shah Jehanabad, which is now Deli, and he has to
raise taxes to pay for it consequently, which nobody ever
(07:18):
likes that. And on top of it all, he has
to deal with his son ron Zeb, who it must
run in the family is rebelling against his father. In
sixteen fifty eight, Shah Jahan's rule is over. His son
has won this battle and beheaded his brothers, and he
sent his father to prison in the Red Fort in
Agra and so much poetically. From there, Shah Jahan could
(07:40):
see the Taj Mahal. He was buried with Moontaz Mahal,
and you can tell that he didn't plan to be
there because this part doesn't look like anything else. And
some people think he was honoring his father by putting
him in this amazing mausoleum, but other folks think that
he was actually spiting his father because symmetry is reserved
for God Islam, and so it might have bothered his
(08:02):
son that the taj Mahal was just so perfect, everything
is so symmetrical, and he tries to mess him up
by putting the two men and throwing everything off. It's
the only asymmetrical element in there. If you were really O. C. D.
It would probably drive you crazy looking at this tomb chamber.
We're fortunate that the taj Mahal became a UNESCO World
(08:24):
Heritage Site in nineteen eighty three, because for a while
there it didn't look so great. No, by the mid
nineteenth century, the taj Mahal was abandoned and in this
terrible state of disrepair, and some of the British collennialists
were actually looting stuff from the from the taj Mahal,
the precious stones, the semi precious stones, there's potentially a
(08:46):
myth that the first Governor General, British Governor General of
India actually planned to dismantle the taj and sell off
the marble, which would be terrible. Can people do that
with the Colosseum and well the Pyramids. All the limestone
has been plundered except the very tip. But eventually it
(09:08):
becomes a pleasure resort for the British and Lord Craizone
is especially notable for helping preserve it and launching a
major conservation effort. And by the mid nineteen nineties that
we're having problems with, you know, the environmental effects of
the air on the stone, and so the Indian government
(09:28):
launched this multimillion dollar restoration effort which is still going
on to scrub the exterior, restore the red sandstone main gates,
and replace the semi precious inlays Um. In the long term,
they might even try to recreate the original gardens. Patash
Ma Hall gets two point two million visitors a year,
and a lot of them are honeymooners. Princess Diana and
(09:50):
Prince Charles were supposed to celebrate their tenure anniversary there,
but she ended up going by herself and you know,
sitting on this bench that now people love to pose by.
So that brings us back to our question. Is the
taj Mahal a monument to love? And opinions on this
are a little mixed. According to an article I read
by Shane Tasker, Gandhi thought it was a monument to
(10:12):
oppression vs. N. Paul said it was building without a function.
And there's one historical revisionist P. N. Oak who's tried
to say that the taj Mahal was built by a
Hindu king and not by Shah Jahan, who was a Muslim,
And he says it was a Hindu temple to Shiva.
But we're going to go ahead and say that's a
crackpot theory. Yeah. All this Huxley even he did not
(10:34):
think much of the taj Mahal at all. He said
that Marble I perceived covers a multitude of sins. So
it's a real cut down for this temple, I'd say.
But we're going to go with a quote we keep
finding in our research from a poet Rabindra Nath take
Or who said, let the splendor of the diamond, pearl
and ruby vanish like the magic shimmer of the rainbow.
(10:56):
Only let this one tear drop. The taj Mahal glistened
spotlessly bright on the cheek of time. So I think
Katie and I are putting our votes in the camp
that the taj Mahal is a symbol of love. We're
in the love story camp, yes, And that brings us
to listener mail. Our first email is from Tori and Tori,
I hope that I'm pronouncing your name right, but she wrote,
(11:19):
I'm a podcast subscriber on iTunes and I have to
thank you for the podcast about the Opium Wars. I'm
a college student. In my final in East Asian History
included an essay about the Opium Wars. Your descriptions matched
our notes so closely that I was able to listen
a few times and write my essay thoroughly. I received
the best grade in the class thanks to you. You
have a listener for life. So this is obviously an
(11:41):
awesome email and we're glad that we were success able
to help you out. And we got another email from
Dave in St. Louis about Traveler and Little Sorrel from
our podcast on History's Greatest of battle Horses, and he says,
just in case fellow listeners wanted to pay their respects
to both of these famous Confederate mounts, it can be
done in one trip. It turns out that in order
(12:02):
to get to v M I, you have to pass
through Washington and Lees Campus, he said. In fact, you
even passed right by Lee Chapel. So even in death,
little Sorel is not more than a short mile away
from Traveler. So thanks to Dave for that one, and
going back to our Valentine's Day theme. If you would
like to read more about how love works, go to
(12:22):
our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com,
and if you'd like to follow us on Twitter, we're
at Missed in History. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com and
be sure to check out the stuff you Missed in
History glass blog on the how stuff Works dot com
one page
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