158 HISTORY, MORPHOLOGY AND PERFECT PROPORTIONS OF MUGHAL TOMBS: THE SECRET TO CREATION OF TAJ MAHAL Krupali Uplekar Krusche, Danny Aijian, Selena Anders, Iva Dokonal and Jill Kapadia Abstract Keywords This study investigates the language of architecture Mughal architecture; tomb design; Indian of the east. Traditional Islamic architecture, especially architecture; Taj Mahal; Humayun’s Tomb. Mughal architecture and its influence on India is examined through developmental growth and linage of Mughal tombs. This paper basically presents research Introduction with emphasis on clarity of spatial characteristics The era of Hindus that survived for more than on four Mughal tombs in India, two of which are world heritage sites including the world renowned 2500 years was highly transformed through the Taj Mahal. A strong context of methodological epoch making change brought by Islam in approach in unfolding the codex of architecture at India. The Mughal invasion of India in AD 1400 Taj and influences of its predecessors in creating this saw a new rise of a refined set of planning tools magnificent monument is examined. A key to some that led to the creation of some of the finest of the unknown mysteries of architecture in India, this contributions of Islamic architecture in India, paper can be of reference to historians, architects ranging from mosques, tombs, palaces and and the general reader alike in understanding what forts that related to the architecture of that makes Taj the pinnacle of architecture in India. It age and time. Mughal architecture found its lays emphasis on how western architectural students roots in India and brought in influences from can get a better understanding of the paradigms of architecture in east. With methods like comparative the West through Islamic planning principles understanding of ordering principles, proportional refined by scholarly exchange between Persia analysis and studies of composition and approach, and Europe. The idea of the use of shell dome this paper explains the process of systematically construction and pointed arches brought understanding the ground rules of architectural a whole new perspective to architecture in composition of non-western culture, especially India. This architecture served as a necessary Mughal architecture as developed through the statement pertaining to religion, through the renaissance phase in the east (AD 1508 to 1707). use of an architectural language that infused both Hindu and Islamic principles, to further emphasize the permanence of the Mughal Copyright © 2010 Archnet-IJAR, Volume 4 - Issue 1 - March 2010 - (158-178) Archnet-IJAR, International Journal of Architectural Research History, Morphology and Perfect Proportions of Mughal Tombs: The Secret to Creation of Taj Mahal 159 Empire in India. Monumental tomb buildings perfection. Elements of Mughal tomb design that followed the principles of sacred geometry, are explained and simplified so that they can proportion and scale were imposed rigidly on be studied individually and as a whole to help the landscapes of India’s soil. As Brown (1990, p. the reader comprehend the components that 2) explains the following: make up Mughal designs. “The Indian masons had, for many centuries been Linage of Mughal Tombs in India engaged on the erection of great stone temples of exquisite design, and to their artistic ability the Before engaging in a discussion of design conquerors gave undoubted credit. On the other principles, it is necessary to briefly describe hand the conquerors not only brought with them an the history of the monuments in question, as infusion of new blood, but also innovations gained well as their precedents: Mughal occupation from other lands, fresh principles and practices which of India began with the arrival of the Mughal had proved effective under all conditions.” Emperor Zāhir ud-Dīn Mohammad Babur (1483- This initiated a new era of prosperity in 1530). Known as the Mughal prince, Babur intellectual and artistic enhancement through descended on his mother’s side from the the skills transferred by Persian craftsmen to 13th century Mongol Temüjin Genghis Khan traditional Hindu builders. The period of Mughal (1162–1227) and on his father’s side, Timur occupation has come to be known as the bin Taraghay Barlas (1336 –1405), the great renaissance age of India and it led to the Asian conqueror of the later fourteenth and construction of some of the most magnificent fifteenth century. The Mughals established a freestanding monumental sacred buildings in homeland, a dynasty and an empire in this new the country. domain, marking it with dramatic architectural manifestations of their might and reminders This paper examines the Islamic planning system of their lineage, simultaneously adopting and the techniques used in building construction elements of the pre-existing architecture and its and design during the introduction and use of conceptual associations. This new style, which sacred building in the Mughal period (AD 1480 blends elements of Roman, Islamic and Hindu to 1858). The study is based on the analysis architecture, reached its pinnacle with the and documentation of four sacred tombs, two construction of the Taj Mahal, encompassing of which are world heritage sites, built in this the functional and symbolic nature of pre- period. They include and represent the most existing mausoleum architecture, as well as refined use of geometry and proportions that elements of its form, and becoming emblematic express a wealth of knowledge and artistic skill of the Mughal Dynasty in India. These that developed in India during the renaissance monuments created a visual presence, which period in the East. This paper investigates the symbolically legitimized those, responsible for architectural language utilized in creating their construction, leaving an identifiable and one of the wonders of the world, Taj Mahal, authoritative mark on the landscapes they while understanding the architectural linage inhabited; the imprint was both cultural and KRUPALI UPLEKAR KRUSCHE, DANNY AIJIAN, SELENA ANDERS, IVA DOKONAL AND JILL KAPADIA of tombs that helped bring the experience to physical and endures till today in its principles Archnet-IJAR, International Journal of Architectural Research - Volume 4 - Issue 1 - March 2010 History, Morphology and Perfect Proportions of Mughal Tombs: The Secret to Creation of Taj Mahal 160 and iconography. the use of colors and material articulation. Large iwans and highly symbolic entrance sequences The typology of the Mughal mausoleum begins created an air of expectancy and began to with the elementary need to cover the resting take major significance, along with scenic place of an important personage. This impulse views, as well as perimeter walls which marked has universal and varied application among the edges of the sacred compound. There humanity, but in India it finds some of its grandest is also suggestion of an awareness of design expression. Mughal funerary architecture begins principals, as evidenced by the discovery of with the earliest burials of great men in the fifteenth and sixteenth century drawings in Islamic empire in mosques – a tradition most likely Istanbul and Tashkent, which contained “the borrowed from the existing Christian examples detailed notations for the layout of ground of Martyria and churches dedicated to saint’s plans, and the construction of muqarna vaults” relics which sought to link the idea of divinity (Hillenbrand, 2004). Factors of axiality, rhythm, with human leaders, and to provide followers repetition, transition and sound are systematically with a place to venerate the divine through the used to yield a full effect. The Mughals adopt much presence of these exemplary entities. Martyria of this typology, with the added introduction of a as well as their direct inspiration, the Greek and highly symbolic design program (Burton-Page, Roman examples of mauseolea, proved to hold 2008) in plan, section and elevation. a more lasting interest in the Islamic tradition; the mausoleum, according to scholar Hillenbrand The impulse to build funerary monuments (2004), becomes the “favored means of transcends theological boundaries and the Muslims conspicuous consumption in architecture”. were not immune to this undeniable human ritual Muslim belief in the soul’s existence after death, or to the need for the utilitarian purpose of the bound by the limitations of time and space, mausoleum - namely commemoration. This same explains the layout and spaciousness of Islamic set of ancient monuments, and consequently the tombs, which were decorated according to the set of ideologies they embody, likewise inspired spiritual and worldly power of the deceased. the artists of the Renaissance. Europe had come into new contact with west Asian regions following “The building of mausolea was able to profit the conquests and losses of the crusades, and a from the perennial Islamic tradition that any newly rediscovered trade of ideas and aesthetics place could serve as a masjid [place of flowed between East and West. Many of these worship]” (Hillenbrand, 1994). Imperial Timurid ideas found new life and were immediately architecture from the Iranian house of Timur, as translated into physical form – the pointed arch, the immediate familial and geographic relative the centralized plan, symbolic relationship of of Mughal architecture in India, was a part proportions, the tie between architecture and of this tradition. Primarily, composed of brick music, the iconography of strict geometries