Agra — the best marble in the world, only from Rajasthan! - Blog

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August 3, 2019

Justine

We couldn’t leave India without seeing the Taj Mahal! Taj Mahal means “Crown of the Palaces,” but it is actually a mausoleum—a tomb (even though mahal means palace. Tomb in Hindi is makabara). The UNESCO World Heritage Site was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal (more on that in a bit). The entire complex took 22 years to build. It was essentially completed in 1643, though work continued for another 10 years. The chief architect was from Lahore (which back then was a part of India). According to the famous legend, Shah Jahan cut off the hands of the architect who built the Taj Mahal so that the Taj would remain supreme.

A little background on the Mughal Empire. The British ruled for ~100 years until 1947. Before the British were the Mughals:

1526 Start of the Mughal empire by Babur, from what today is Uzbekistan (reigned 1526-30), who is a descendent of Genghis Khan
Humayun (reigned 1530-56) was forced into exile in Persia by rebels, leading to an unstable empire
Akbar (reigned 1556-1605): implemented a modern administration, increased trade, and allowed freedom of religion. He also built Fatehpur Sikri, a city an hour away from Agra, but there was no water, so they had to leave after a few years. Agra and Delhi were the two most important cities.
Jahangir (reigned 1605-27): neglectful and addicted to opium
Shah Jahan (reigned 1628-1658): The splendor of the court reached its peak, as exemplified by the Taj Mahal
Dara Shikoh was Shah Jahan’s eldest son (who Shah Jahan also favored), but the younger son Aurengzeb reigned 1658-1707 – Aurengzeb was religiously very conservative, executed his brother (who was more into the literature and arts than warfare and power), and imprisoned his father for 8 years before Shah Jahan died (Shah’s only request was to be imprisoned where he could see the Taj, which was so kindly granted). Hence, Aurengzeb is a more controversial emperor.

The remaining emperors were not very notable. The empire descended into chaos, and was formally dissolved by the British Raj after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. In 1876, Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India.

We left at 3am for Agra, which was about 3.5 hrs away. We left so early because we wanted to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise.

The real name of the Taj Mahal is Mumtaz Mahal, but Mumtaz sounds like Taj and Taj means crown, so we now call it the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan had the mausoleum built for his third wife. The first two wives were not important, so they were buried in tiny dome buildings (tiny in comparison), on the outskirts of the complex. This is because the first two wives had no children, while the third, Mumtaz, had 14 children. She was from Iran and was the most beautiful woman (so our tour guide said) but died at a young age (38 years old) during childbirth – in fact, 8 of the 14 children died. What’s more, she died on the battlefield where Shah Jahan was fighting — there was no hospital and limited medical treatment. (In addition to his 3 wives, Shah Jahan had 360 concubines.)

South gate to the Taj Mahal. The entire complex, including the buildings surrounding the mausoleum, has 208 rooms.

After entering through the south gate, we came upon a vast garden of grass and flowers, and a canal that ran through the middle leading up to the mausoleum. It seemed smaller in real life than in the pictures, but it was still quite impressive.

At 74.5 m tall — slightly higher than Qutub Minar, the tallest tower in Delhi!

The mausoleum is made of white marble from Rajasthan — apparently the second hardest stone after diamonds. It comes from the mines, rather than the mountains. It is a very special crystallized marble that glows in the light. It must look amazing under a full moon!

There are 4 towers surrounding the mausoleum — they come from Mughal architecture and make the mausoleum look like the shape of a crown. They are slightly tilted outward (like 93º instead of 90º) —if something were to happen, they would fall outward rather than inward, saving the mausoleum from ruin.

The mausoleum was cleaned two years ago, with no chemicals — mud is placed on it and then washed off. The surface on the outside was all cleaned except for the dome, so we could see the slight difference in color between the whiteness of the cleaned part and the browner dome (but still gorgeous).

We weren’t allowed to climb up to the top (not since 1995) because of suicide concerns, so we just went up to the first floor and gazed at its patterns — the Arabic on the wall from the Quran, the flower engravings, the intricate carvings. I was amazed how this magnificent structure was built entirely by hand — with horses to carry the marble and chisels to carve it!

Shah Jahan wanted everything to be symmetrical (thus why the pics I took of it on all 4 sides look the same), so to the west side of the mausoleum was a mosque, and to the east side was another mosque that looks the same but is not used – it was built just for symmetry. The west one is used because it faces Mecca.

The actual tombs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan are in the basement but they built replicas above. Ironically, the tombs are the only part of the Taj Mahal that aren’t symmetrical —the wife’s tomb is in the middle and the husband’s is to the side.

Shah Jahan planned to build a black Taj Mahal — a mirror image of the white Taj Mahal — for himself. But only the platform (across the river in this blurry pic) was built before he was imprisoned for 8 years by his son. So he was buried in the Taj Mahal, next to his wife.

The tour guide brought us to a small shop, where we watched them make the flower engravings and marble patterns like the ones seen on the Taj.

They showed us how the red stone and white marble glow in the light but not the other colored stones — this is because the red stone has more holes in it, allowing the light to pass through. Apparently Indian marble (from Rajasthan) is better than Italian marble (most marble) — it lasts forever, if you drop it it won’t break (but the floor will), and you can spill liquids and they won’t seep in (they poured Coke on it to demonstrate). It sounded like a sales pitch for the perfect furniture for your home. They were of course trying to sell us stuff — they had jewelry boxes, coasters of all different sizes, and elephants. I got a small marble elephant, with the cool glow-in-the-dark red stone. I would find these same elephants at various stores in Delhi for half the price — but I’m sure the one I got is better quality and more intricate (if only to make myself feel better).

We were quite hungry by this point (it was only 10am but it felt like we’d been up for hours—which is true) and had brunch at Priya Restaurant (our tour guide probably had a connection with this place too). We shared chicken tikka masala, mutton, and paneer potato dumplings with garlic naan and rice. I had a mango lassi.

The Agra Fort is the only fort in India where all the early Mughal emperors lived. Mughal Emperor Akbar built the initial structures in 1573 (after 8 years), and his grandson Shah Jahan finished it.

Shah Jahan also built the Red Fort (in Delhi), which was constructed in 1639 as the palace of his fortified capital Shahjahanabad. Both forts are technically red forts since they are made of red sandstone, though the Agra Fort wasn’t all red sandstone buildings — some of them were demolished by Shah Jahan to make room for white marble palaces. The Red Fort is also less as it used to be — it was plundered during Iranian emperor Nadir Shah’s invasion of the Mughal Empire in 1747, and most of its marble structures were destroyed by the British after the Revolt of 1857.

There were a lot of open courtyards in the Agra Fort. There was the Jahangiri Mahal, built as the women’s quarters, with Jahangir’s (Akbar’s son) bathtub outside. There was the Shish-Mahal (summer palace – Glass Palace) with the glass mirrors like we saw at Amber Fort in Jaipur, though here we couldn’t enter the room. From the windows we could see the Taj Mahal off in the distance, which was like a castle covered in fog in the distance.

We had the afternoon to visit Fatehpur Sikri, a palace built by Akbar. It was about a one-hour drive from Agra. Fateh is victory – to conquer someone, pur means city, and sikri is the city name. It was finished in 1982 and took 12 years to build.