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The Taj Mahal: Architecture, Symbolism, and Urban Significance

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The Taj Mahal: Architecture, Symbolism, and Urban Significance 128 ebba koch EBBA KOCH THE TAJ MAHAL: ARCHITECTURE, SYMBOLISM, AND URBAN SIGNIFICANCE Much has been written on the Taj Mahal, but little Dr. Yunus Jaffery from Dr. Zakir Hussain College in has been said about its architecture. There has been Delhi,5 I have established from the Persian sources a only one interpretation of the symbolism of the corpus of thirty-five Shahjahani palaces (sing. dawlat- mausoleum,1 and the urban situation of the monument kh¸na) and garden residences (sing. b¸gh), of which in the city of Agra has been almost entirely neglected. twenty-four proved upon field investigation to exist in In brief form, this essay presents the main results of varying sizes and states of preservation. In the whole a recently completed monograph in which I address of Islamic architecture, this is the largest extant body these issues.2 of palaces built by a single patron. The Taj Mahal is the Mughals’ great contribution to Entirely new measured drawings of seventeen pal- world architecture, and, as the contemporary sources aces were prepared by the Indian architect Richard reveal, it was conceived as such from the very beginning A. Barraud, who drew them on the basis of measure- (fig. 1). In the words of Shah Jahan’s early historian ments he and I made during extensive fieldwork,6 Muhammad Amin Qazwini, writing in the 1630s: which I undertook because many of these complexes And a dome of high foundation and a building of great are hardly or not at all recorded. Altogether, Mughal magnificence was founded—a similar and equal to it the architecture, like the Islamic architecture of India in eye of the Age has not seen under these nine vaults of general, is not well documented. The art historian the enamel-blue sky, and of anything resembling it the cannot rely on measured drawings to the same extent ear of Time has not heard in any of the past ages…it will possible for the better-documented areas of Islamic be the masterpiece of the days to come, and that which architecture or for Western historical architecture in 3 adds to the astonishment of humanity at large. general. The pioneering surveys of the Archaeological Not only was the monument to be a magnificent burial Survey of India from the end of the nineteenth and place for Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan’s beloved wife the first half of the twentieth centuries included sev- (d. 1631), but also—and this is explicitly pointed eral Mughal sites, but only a few—such as the mono- out by the emperor’s main historian {Abd al-Hamid graphs of Edmund W. Smith on Fatehpur Sikri and 7 Lahawri—it was to testify to the power and glory of on Akbar’s Tomb at Sikandra—were published. More Shah Jahan (r. 1628–58) and Mughal rule: often than not, when one wants to have an exact plan of a building one has to go and measure it. On the They laid the plan for a magnificent building and a dome other hand, while establishing this basic documenta- of high foundation which for its loftiness will until the Day tion, the art historian is confronted by all the ques- of Resurrection remain a memorial to the sky-reaching tions the discipline has developed in the span of ambition of His Majesty, the Sahib Qiran-Thani (Second its existence, during which the approach has moved Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction of the Planets Jupiter from formal assessment and analysis towards contex- and Venus), and its strength will represent the firmness of the intentions of its builder.4 tual studies. I began my survey of the palaces at Agra and, dur- In other words, the Taj Mahal was built with posterity ing the 1980s, spent months in the Red Fort, mea- in mind, and we the viewers are part of its concept. suring and photographing its buildings. From here I came to study the Taj Mahal in the context of a the Taj Mahal was always before my eyes at a distance survey of the palaces and gardens of Shah Jahan that across the river Yamuna, popularly called Jamna (fig. I have been conducting since 1976 as part of a larger 2), and one of these views eventually became the cover survey of Mughal architecture. With the assistance of image of my book Mughal Architecture (1991), in which the taj mahal: architecture, symbolism, and urban significance 129 Fig. 1. Agra, Taj Mahal (1632–43), mausoleum and flanking buildings seen from the upper level of the gate. (Photo: Ebba Koch, 1996) I dealt with the Taj Mahal for the first time, albeit vey of India. With Richard Barraud I have been mea- only briefly.8 I felt overwhelmed by its perfection, suring and photographing the buildings of the com- splendor, and sheer size. Eventually I realized that plex in intermittent expeditions during the last ten as a scholar I was not alone in my awe of the famous years.11 The survey has brought me into the remot- building. The vast literature on the Taj Mahal com- est corners of the Taj Mahal, and this close encoun- prises surprisingly few serious scholarly studies and, ter with the architecture has revealed the contribu- as I pointed out at the beginning, there is as yet no tion of the anonymous workmen who inscribed their monograph or modern analytical treatise dedicated mason marks on the stones.12 to its architecture.9 I began my analysis by looking at the entire com- At the same time I came to realize that many answers plex of the Taj Mahal and at its urban situation. I to my questions about Shah Jahan’s palaces and gar- could not help noticing that the Taj Mahal invites dens lay in the Taj Mahal as the ultimate project of an approach that coincides with what since the 1970s his architectural patronage. The final incentive to might be termed a “deconstructive reading.” Accord- study it in detail came in 1994, when the editors of ing to Jaques Derrida, the main propagator of this the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam asked method of disassembling and questioning established me to write the article on the building.10 This started notions, all Western thought is based on the idea my project of newly documenting and analyzing the of centers—Origin, Truth, Ideal Form, Fixed Point, entire mausoleum complex; I am the first Western Immovable Mover, Essence, God, and Presence—that scholar since India gained independence in 1947 to guarantee all meaning. The problem with these cen- have received permission for such an undertaking, ters is that they attempt to exclude. In doing so they through the generosity of the Archaeological Sur- ignore, repress, or marginalize others.13 Even those 130 ebba koch Fig. 2. Taj Mahal, mausoleum flanked by mosque (right) and Mihman Khana (left), seen across the river Jamna. (Photo: Ebba Koch, 1985) who are tiring of deconstruction will see that the idea sures 896.10 x 300.84 m (fig. 3), which works out to of center-and-margin illustrates the perception of the 1112.5 x 374 Shahjahani gaz. Of this complex, the Taj too tellingly not to be included in this discussion. tomb garden and its forecourt are fully preserved; Traditionally, the white building of the mausoleum we measured it as 561.20 x 300.84 (300) m, that is, takes the position of the center in the conception 696 x 374 (373) gaz (fig. 4).14 The Shahjahani linear of the beholder, who hardly notices the large com- yard, called gaz or zir¸{, corresponds to about 81–82 plex at the end of which it stands. Due to the prom- cm, or 32 inches; our field studies have shown that inence of the tomb, its surrounding architecture has it was not an exact unit but a relative, proportionally received very little attention—in other words, it has used one, the length of which could vary slightly, even been marginalized. within one and the same building complex. For the It thus seems important first to consider the entire overall length of the Taj complex, the average gaz complex, especially its subsidiary courtyards, which figure comes to 80.55 cm. emerge as integral components of its design. In addi- The tomb garden consists of two main compo- tion, I have extended the investigation of the sur- nents: a cross-axial, four-fold garden—in the form roundings of the Taj to its larger environment, to its of a classical ch¸rb¸gh (fig. 3: B)—and, towards the relationship to the city of Agra. river, a raised terrace on which are placed the mau- soleum and its flanking buildings (fig. 3: A). In this, ANALYSIS OF THE COMPLEX the Taj Mahal garden follows the form of the typical garden of Mughal Agra, the waterfront garden. As I The mausoleum is set at the northern end of the have shown elsewhere, this is a specific form of the main axis of a vast oblong walled-in complex that mea- ch¸rb¸gh developed by the Mughals in response to the the taj mahal: architecture, symbolism, and urban significance 131 geographic conditions of the Indo-Gangetic plain, Ram Bagh, originally Nur Jahan’s Bagh-i Nur Afshan and more specifically for the riverfront situation at (fig. 5: 3 and 4; fig. 6).19 The evidence indicates that Agra. Here the water source was not a lively spring most of these gardens followed the riverfront design, on a mountain slope, as in the Mughals’ native Cen- with the main building on a terrace overlooking the tral Asia, but a large, slow-flowing river, from which river and a ch¸rb¸gh on the landward side.20 the desired running water had to be brought into the garden by means of water lifts.
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