Some discussions related to the site of the Taj Mahal Anand Dabak August 11, 2015 Abstract The construction of the Taj Mahal is usually in the context of building it on an empty piece of land obtained by Shah Jahan from Raja Jaisingh. In this paper, this is re-examined based on four primary references: (i),(ii) Accounts of the Dutch officers Pelsaert and DeLaet of the Dutch East India Company giving the description of palaces on Yamuna riverfront in Agra before 1630. (iii) ShahJahan’s Firman to Raja JaiSingh in the context of building the TajMahal from 1633. (iv) A word for word translation of the official chronicles of ShahJahan as given by his court chroniclers by Qazwini and Lahori. Based on the above primary references, it is proposed that the current presumption about only an empty piece of land being exchanged between Raja Jaisingh and Shah Jahan for building the Taj be re- examined. The above references, particularly (i), (ii) and (iii) point to the existence of a manzil/mansion/palace standing on that piece of land at the time of the transaction. Interestingly, this inference about the existence of a mansion at the Taj site before, is in agreement with Koch [1, page 97, right column, lines 3-4], Begley & Desai [4, page 41], although at other places in Koch [1, pages 28, 256], Begley & Desai [2, page 74] this is not alluded to. The paper concludes by urging a further study of the demolition and/or modification of the existing mansion/manzil on the site that may have been required to build the Taj. Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. 1 1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3 2.0 The river front gardens of Agra and Raja Mansingh’s mansion .................................. 3 2.1 Background on Raja Mansingh ..................................................................................... 9 2.2 How would Raja Mansingh’s Agra river front house/haveli would have looked during his time? .................................................................................................................................. 10 3.0 Shah Jahan’s firman to Raja Jai Singh ........................................................................ 14 4.0 The Padshahnama of official court historians Qazwini and Lahauri .......................... 14 4.1 Definition of the term “Manzil” .................................................................................. 15 4.2 Definition of the term “Zamin”................................................................................... 16 4.3 Salient points from the Padshahnamas ....................................................................... 16 5.0 Compilation of the primary sources related to Taj addressed by different authors .... 18 6.0 Secondary sources from scholarly literature ............................................................... 19 7.0 Overall analysis, conclusions and future directions .................................................... 19 Acknowledgements: .......................................................................................................... 20 References: ........................................................................................................................ 20 Appendix A: Pelasert, DeLaet’s listing of the palaces/houses of nobles in Agra in 1628 22 Appendix B: De Laet’s reference to Raja Mansingh’s riverfront palace during Akbar’s death and Jahangir’s ascension, from [6] .......................................................................................... 26 Appendix C: Some of the monuments built by Raja Mansingh ....................................... 27 Appendix D: Shah Jahan’s firman to Raja Jai Singh from Begley and Desai’ book Taj Mahal, 1989................................................................................................................................... 30 Appendix E: Qazwini and Lahori’s Padshahnama translation given by Begley and Desai34 Appendix F: Lahauri’s Padshahnama translation from an outside agency in USA .......... 37 Appendix G: Page sections of the secondary sources ....................................................... 39 1.0 Introduction In the scholarly works of Koch [1], Begley & Desai [2, 4] the context of building the Taj Mahal is on a piece of land obtained by Shah Jahan from Raja Jaisingh [see Koch [1], page 28, right column, bottom lines 4-5], [see Koch [1], page 256], [see Begley & Desai, [2], page 74]. The implication of these scholarly works is thus that the construction site for the Taj Mahal obtained by Shah Jahan from Jaisingh was empty and devoid of any construction on it. On the other hand, the river front of Agra was full with palaces [see Koch [1], page 29], as also a detailed list of the palaces in Agra along Yamuna, is given by the Dutch authors Pelsaert [5, 10] and De Laet [6, 13]. In the interest of referring to the primary sources and cross checking the scholarly works by Koch, Begley & Desai and R. Nath [1],[4],[12] against [5], [6], the author of this article undertook the task of cross checking all the references from primary sources, related to the Taj. In this regards the primary sources that were referred to are: (i) (ii) The accounts of Dutch officials Pelsaert and DeLaet about the layout of Agra before 1630 [5], [6], [13], [10]. Both the original Latin and Dutch versions and their English translations have been referred to. (iii) The Firman by ShahJahan to Jaisingh in the context of TajMahal from [see Begley & Desai [4]] which itself was obtained from [11]. (iv) The Padshahnama that is the official chronicle of Shah Jahan’s reign by his court historians Qazwini [7] and Lahauri [3]. The organization of the paper is as follows: Section 2.0 discusses the layout of Agra and accounts of Pelasert and DeLaet [5], [6], [13], 14] about the different riverfront palaces in Agra at that time. The list of these palaces is then compared against the list of riverfront palaces in Agra as given in the Jaipur map of 1707 [see Koch [1], page 24]. Similarly, we discuss the analysis given by R Nath [12, page 94] in this relation. Section 3.0 discusses the Firman by Shah Jahan to Raja JaiSingh in the context of TajMahal and translation as given by Begley and Desai in [4, pages 169-172], [11, page 42]. Section 4.0 discusses Padshahnama of Lahori, the different translations/interpretations of these by Begley & Desai [4, pages 42, 43 ] and a translation obtained by the present author from an independent Persian agency in USA. Simiarly a translation of the Padshahnama of Qazwini is given by Begley and Desai in [4]. Section 5.0 then tries to summarize the complete analysis. This is done in a tabular fashion by comparing how the scholarly works by Koch, Begley & Desai and R. Nath [1],[4],[12], address the primary sources in relation to Taj as given above and any missing analysis/discrepancies in these scholarly works related to these primary sources. Section 6.0 gives some preliminary conclusions and directions for future work. 2.0 The river front gardens of Agra and Raja Mansingh’s mansion The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602 with one of its main offices in India being in Agra. The officers stationed in India, sent detailed records of Agra and other Indian cities to the company head offices in Holland. De Laet, a Dutch East India company officer in Holland, compiled these company records and published them in 1631 [13] and which were translated into English in [6] in 1927. In this record he gives the list of the palaces along the river Yamuna in Agra before 1630. Another actual eye witness account of Agra is again by a Dutch East India company employee, Pelsaert [5, 10]. Pelsaert was stationed in Agra from 1618 to 1625. He published his eye witness account of the palaces in Agra in his book in 1628 [10] which was translated into English in 1929 [5]. A detailed account of Agra during the Mughal period has also been given in [see Koch [1], 29]. The specific period of interest to us in the context of Taj Mahal is how the city of Agra looked before ~1630 before the death of Shah Jahan’s wife Mumtaz Ur Zamani in June, 1631. As given in [1, 29], the river front of Agra was covered by “Baghs” or river front gardens of the nobles in the Mughal court. The Figure 1 below reproduces the figure from [1, page 28], which in itself is a Jaipur map of Agra in 1707. These baghs/gardens would house a mansion for the noble. Pelsaert mentions these mansions in his description of Agra [5, page 5]. Further, note on the right column of page (5) of [5] highlighted in Appendix A below Pelsaert also mentions the following points: The gardens (baghs) of the lords (including the houses/palaces in the garden) were so big/magnificent with strong walls etc. that they looked like forts. In terms of opulence these were much more than the ones that Pelsaert had seen in Europe at that time. The tomb of Itimad-ud-daula was estimated to cost Rs. 13.5 lakhs (3.5 lakhs already spent and 10 lakhs additional to be spent). The lords/nobles would use the gardens (houses/palaces) for their pleasure when they were alive and then they would get buried in them after their death. This point has also been noted in [1] by Prof. Ebba Koch ([1], page 33, left column, line 11-12 from bottom), in fact she has given several examples of the river front gardens/residences in Figure 1 below [namely property