Taj Mahal

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Taj Mahal
ताजमहल
تاج محل
UNESCO world heritage UNESCO World Heritage Emblem
Agra, Taj Mahal LCCN95505064.jpg
Taj Mahal (around 1890)
National territory: IndiaIndia India
Type: Culture
Criteria : (i)
Reference No .: 252
UNESCO region : Asia and Pacific
History of enrollment
Enrollment: 1983  (session 7)
Agra (India)
Agra
Agra
The Taj Mahal in Agra (Uttar Pradesh) on the map of India.

The Taj Mahal , German transcribed Taj Mahal ( Perso-Arabic :تاج محل, DMG tāǧ maḥall  / Devanagari : ताजमहल tāj mahal , "crown of the palace"), is an approx. 68 meter high, 57 meter long and 57 meter wide mausoleum (tomb building), which is located on a 96 meter × 96 meter platform ( Jagati ) rises on the south bank of the Yamuna River on the outskirts of Agra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh . The core of the building, like the dome and the minarets, are made of bricks fired on site , which are clad with white marble slabs both inside and out . The Muslim mogul Shah Jahan had the building built in memory of his great love Mumtaz Mahal (Arjumand Bano Begum, later also Mumtaz-uz-Zamani ), who died in 1631 . Since the foreign word here stands for a building, a tomb, i.e. something neuter, “the Taj Mahal” is often also used in German.

construction

mausoleum

Taj Mahal (2010)

The floor plan of the actual mausoleum standing on an approx. 5 m high square substructure corresponds to an irregular octagon , which is vaulted by a nearly 30 m high, bulged outer dome resting on a drum with a maximum diameter of 26.65 m; this in turn is surrounded by four small open, pavilion-like Chhatri structures with small - not bulging - domes. Not quite mirror-symmetric according to the latest measurements - - on the facade below the large central dome is located at the four long sides of the building, a Middle Big Ivan bend with a niche, flanked by smaller arches in two levels. The four minarets with two aisles arranged around the main building are slightly inclined towards the building so that they do not fall on the main building in the event of an earthquake .

Taj Mahal, interior with the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan surrounded by an octagonal Jali barrier

Under the inner dome there is an octagonal central room with the tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan. To the right and left of this there are several smaller rooms, with a spiral staircase in all four corner rooms that leads to the roof.

The two tombs in the central octagon are surrounded by a likewise octagonal Jali barrier, the modern walls of which are made of filigree openwork marble. The graves here are cenotaphs ; the actual, simpler graves are in the crypt below . The tomb of Mumtaz Mahal is located exactly in the middle, in complete harmony with the symmetry of the room, while the slightly larger tomb of Shah Jahan was added later and is therefore asymmetrical next to it.

  • Portal of the mausoleum with a circumferential band with Koran inscriptions

  • Detail of the exterior cladding with flower reliefs and incrustations

The outer facades and the tombs inside are decorated with reliefs and, above all, with multicolored marble incrustations in the Pietra dura style of the greatest delicacy. There are colorful floral motifs, such as B. lilies, roses and other flowers, but also inscriptions with passages from the Koran in black marble on a white background. The tomb of the Shah is only decorated with floral motifs, while that of Mumtaz Mahal also has Koran inscriptions because in Islam "a woman who dies while giving life is considered a martyr ". On the sides of her sarcophagus are the 99 names of God and at the top the inscription: “He is eternal. He is enough. ” , And the following passage from the Koran: “ God is the one who has no God beside him. He knows what is hidden and what is manifest. He is compassionate and compassionate. "

Outbuildings and garden

The Taj Mahal is located within an area enclosed by a wall of red sandstone . This district is entered through a gateway made of red sandstone with white marble decorations. On the roof of this gateway there are small octagonal, open kiosks with domes made of white marble in the four corners; an open passage above the outer and inner entrance, vaulted by a row of eleven small white domes. There are a total of 26 domes. The gate is also decorated with quotes from the Koran.

Entrance building

Between the gateway and the mausoleum is an 18 hectare garden with an elongated water basin in the center, a four-part symmetrical Tschahār Bāgh based on the pattern of Bagh-e Wafa near Jalalabad . According to traditional Islamic / Persian ideas, it is a paradise garden .

The actual mausoleum building on the bank of the river is flanked to the right and left by two buildings made of red sandstone with decorations of white marble; each of these two buildings has three white marble domes, but lower than the central Taj Mahal. The building to the west, in the direction of Mecca , is a mosque . The symmetrically opposite building in the east of the mausoleum was originally a guest house with the same floor plan.

history

  • Animation of the Taj Mahal

  • Tombs inside the Taj Mahal

  • Tombs in the crypt of the Taj Mahal

Construction of the Taj Mahal began shortly after Mumtaz Mahal's death in 1631 and was completed in 1648. Over 20,000 craftsmen from many parts of South and Central Asia and various architects took part, including Ahmad Lahori and the Persian Abu Fazel from Badakhshan (now Afghanistan) . He fused Persian architecture with Indian elements to create an outstanding work of Indo-Islamic architecture . The building materials were brought in from India and other parts of Asia with the help of around 1000 elephants .

The white marble came from the area of Jaipur ( Rajasthan ), black marble from a place called Charkoh, yellow marble from the banks of the Narbada . 28 different types of precious and semi-precious stones were used in the marble: jasper from Punjab , carnelian from Baghada, agate from Yemen , crystal from China , lapis lazuli and sapphires from Ceylon , corals from Arabia and the Red Sea , garnets from Bundelkhand , diamonds made of panna , onyx from Persia , blood jasper ( heliotrope ) from Fatehpur Sikri , and various other stones, including turquoise .

The French travelers Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and François Bernier reported that mullahs were originally staying in the adjoining rooms of the central octagonal mausoleum , reciting passages from the Koran for the souls of the royal couple. There was also an arrangement of carpets , chandeliers "and other decorations" which were changed from time to time.

completion

The date of completion is controversial. The critics rely on three arguments:

  • The court chronicler Abdul Hamid Lahori noted that construction began six months after the death of Mumtaz Mahal (who died on June 17, 1631) and that it took twelve years to build. Accordingly, the mausoleum should have been completed in 1644.
  • An inscription above the main entrance contains the year 1648 as the completion date.
  • From 1652 there is a letter from Prince Aurangzeb , the son of Shah Jahan, stating that the Taj Mahal is in need of repair.
  • The French traveler Tavernier claimed to have seen the beginning and the end of the construction work and gives 1652 as the end of the work.

Legends

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
The Taj Mahal on the Yamuna River

A widespread legend has it that a similar structure made of black marble was originally planned as a mausoleum for Shah Jahan on the other side of the Yamuna River , but it was never realized. On the opposite side of the "white" Taj Mahal was a park with a large pool of water. The white Taj Mahal was reflected in this basin and appeared black in the water.

Shah Jahan was ousted by his son Muhammad Aurangzeb Alamgir and spent the rest of his life as a prisoner in the Red Fort. In 1666 he was buried next to his wife. His grave destroys the symmetry of the building, which shows that he intended to build his own tomb, especially since, in order to preserve this symmetry, he had a rest house built on the east side of the building, similar to the mosque on the west side is.

The Taj Mahal is not in the center of the garden, as is usual with Persian tombs, but on the northern edge, which suggests that another tomb was planned on the opposite bank. The buildings separated from the river would then have been in the center of the now large garden area, as it corresponds to the Persian understanding of heaven as a Tschahār Bāgh . Humayun's tomb z. B. in Delhi follows this concept.

Under British rule

Allegedly, the British colonial rulers under the governor Lord William Cavendish-Bentinck planned in the 19th century to sell the severely neglected building piece by piece at auctions in England. According to the Bentinck biographer John Rosselli, this story grew out of an attempt to sell parts of the Red Fort and other archaeological finds from Agra for a profit.

The Taj Mahal was listed by the British government under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904 . The gardens of the Taj Mahal were "restored" on the instructions of Lord Curzon in 1908 by the Archaeological Survey of India and largely replaced by lawns.

350th anniversary celebration

View from the entrance building
Taj Mahal during a monsoon shower, July 2010

On September 27, 2004, the government of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh celebrated the 350th anniversary of the completion of the Taj Mahal. For six months the outstanding importance of the building was recognized in other events. In order to protect the mausoleum, the celebrations took place about two kilometers away. The local media suspected that the main purpose of the festivities was to stimulate tourism. In contrast, the tourism minister claimed that two books had been found that prove that the building was completed in 1654, but did not name their titles.

Today's meaning

The Taj Mahal was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983. Today it is considered one of the most beautiful and important examples of the Mughal style because of the harmony of its proportions . The Taj Mahal is also used as a place of prayer for Muslim citizens.

Rabindranath Tagore described in one of his poems the Taj Mahal as "a tear on the cheek of time".

The Taj Mahal is a popular destination for newlyweds from India. The visit is intended to make and strengthen mutual love lasting.

In 2007 the Taj Mahal was chosen as one of the " new seven wonders of the world " as part of a private initiative, according to the organizers . Both UNESCO as the official guardian of the world cultural heritage and z. B. Egypt (Ancient Wonders of the World : Pyramids of Gizeh ) distanced themselves from the choice described as a "private campaign" without scientific criteria.

Safety measures

After bomb threats in 2006, the Indian authorities tightened security measures. The grounds of the Taj Mahal can only be entered through security gates. Visitors are not allowed to take liquids with them, with the exception of drinking water. The monument is guarded by soldiers around the clock. A flight ban was issued in its vicinity .

Between 500 and 700 rhesus monkeys inhabited the facility in 2020 and stalked tourists to beg for food. There were also individual attacks by the monkeys, so it was decided to deploy police officers armed with slingshots to ward off the monkeys when US President Donald Trump visited at the end of February 2020.

Environmental damage

The Taj Mahal appears yellowish, especially in the evening sun (October 2007)

In December 2002 the marble facade was treated with Multani Mitti , a traditional Indian mixture of earth, grains, milk and lime to remove traces of corrosion . Since companies drain a lot of water from the Yamuna River, its level is falling steadily. This brought the wooden pillars of the monument into contact with air and became brittle. Fine dust from the nearby megacity of Agra stained the facade yellow. The mausoleum is also often exposed to sand storms due to deforestation. India's highest court ruled the demolition of the entire monument in early 2018, if conservation measures do not begin immediately.

Replicas

A Taj Mahal copy was built on the initiative of a wealthy private citizen in Bangladesh , but with somewhat clumsy minarets (see pictures). This replica is located about 16 kilometers east of Dhaka in Sonargaon . The completion took 5 years (2003-2008) and is now an attraction there. The cost of this was reportedly about $ 58 million.

A luxury project inspired by the Taj Mahal, twice the size of the original, is to be created as Taj Arabia within the large-scale project Falcon City of Wonders in Dubai , United Arab Emirates .

See also

Other important tombs of the Mughal period are:

literature

  • WE Begley (ed.): Taj Mahal. The Illumined Tomb. The Aga Khan Programm for Islamic Architecture, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 1989, ISBN 0-295-96944-X .
  • Neil Parkyn: Seventy Architectural Wonders . Frederking & Thaler, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89405-536-7 .
  • Ebba Koch: The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra. Thames & Hudson, London 2006, ISBN 0-500-34209-1 .
  • Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal (in the L'Inde dorée series ), French translation by Virginie Troit and David Amehame, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996 (French).
  • Wilfried Westphal : The chosen one of the palace: from the heyday of Islam in India; the story of the Taj Mahal. Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 978-3-7995-0108-8 .

Web links

Commons : Taj Mahal  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ There are two Arabic terms: tāǧ = "crown", maḥall = literally "place (where the knot / problem loosens)". As a combination of words, it is called “crown of a place” in Arabic, but in the Persian context “crown of place” (Pers .: tāǧ-i maḥall , where the -i is often left out because it does not appear in writing). In the Indian context of the Mughal period, the term maḥall experienced the change in meaning to “palace”, so that this name there correctly means “crown of the palace”.
  2. ^ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal (in the series: L'Inde dorée ), French translation by Virginie Troit and David Amehame, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 54.
  3. ^ Dilip R. Ahuja, MB Rajani: On the symmetry of the central dome of the Taj Mahal. In Current Science March 2016.
  4. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 54.
  5. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 52.
  6. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal , ..., PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 59.
  7. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 62.
  8. ↑ Here from the French: «Il est éternel. Il est suffisant. » - Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, pp. 62, 68.
  9. ↑ Here from the French: «Dieu est celui qui n'as pas de Dieu auprès de lui. Il sait ce qui est caché et ce qui est manifest. Il est miséricordieux et compatissant. » - Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 69.
  10. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, pp. 46-48.
  11. ↑ a b James Dickie (Yaqub Zaki): The Mughal Garden: Gateway to Paradise . Muqarnas 3, 1985, p. 129; Jyoti P. Sharma: The British Treatment of Historic Gardens in the Indian Subcontinent: The Transformation of Delhi's Nawab Safdarjung's Tomb Complex from a Funerary Garden into a Public Park . Garden History 35/2, 2007, p. 215.
  12. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 70.
  13. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center: Taj Mahal (Eng.), Apr. 30, 2006.
  14. ^ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal , ..., PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 82.
  15. ^ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, pp. 82, 64 (turquoise).
  16. ↑ a b Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal , ..., PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 57.
  17. ↑ Ganesh Saili: Taj Mahal ,…, PML Editions / Luster Press, New Delhi (India) 1996, p. 42.
  18. ↑ The Empire of the Warriors - The Indian Moguls , Director: Sally Aitken
  19. ↑ Worldwide Election , The New 7 Wonders of the World, July 7, 2007 (Eng.)
  20. ↑ Controversial vote. Spiegel Online, July 8, 2007.
  21. ↑ Peter Stubley: Trump to be protected by monkey police on India visit. The Independent of February 20, 2020.
  22. ↑ Multani Mitti is being used to beautify Taj Mahal: Report. The Times of India, December 8, 2002.
  23. ↑ Gisa Bodenstein: Taj Mahal threatens to fall victim to religious fanaticism. In: hpd.de. August 8, 2018. Retrieved August 8, 2018 .
  24. ↑ Randeep Ramesh: Bangladeshi director to build mini-Taj Mahal . In: The Guardian . December 10, 2008, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed July 4, 2019]).
  25. ↑ http://www.arabianbusiness.com/work-on-dubai-s-taj-mahal-replica-start-in-2016-616688.html (engl.)
  26. ↑ The author Wilfried Westphal (born 1941) is a freelance writer, ethnologist and Egyptologist, dissertation Hamburg 1971 on the Lacandons in Mexico.

Coordinates: 27 ° 10 ′ 30 ″  N , 78 ° 2 ′ 31 ″  E