Taj Mahal: How Shah Jahan Built a Tomb for Mumtaz Mahal

The Taj Mahal is a white marble mausoleum on the bank of the Yamuna river in Agra, northern India. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan ordered it after the death of his wife Mumtaz Mahal in 1631, and the complex was built between about 1632 and 1653. It is the most famous example of Mughal architecture, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983 and one of the most visited monuments in the world.

Background: Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal

Shah Jahan, born Prince Khurram in 1592, was the son of the emperor Jahangir and grandson of Akbar the Great. In 1612 he married Arjumand Banu Begum, daughter of the noble Asaf Khan and niece of the powerful empress Nur Jahan, whose career is described in Jahangir and Nur Jahan. She received the title Mumtaz Mahal, usually translated as “the chosen one of the palace”.

Shah Jahan became emperor in 1628. Mumtaz accompanied him on campaigns and was a close companion and adviser. On 17 June 1631, at Burhanpur in the Deccan, she died after giving birth to their fourteenth child. Contemporary writers describe the emperor’s grief as intense; he withdrew from court life for a time.

Her body was buried temporarily in a garden at Burhanpur and brought to Agra around the end of 1631. There a site was chosen on the riverbank south of the city, land that belonged to Raja Jai Singh of Amber, who received four mansions in exchange.

Planning, design and construction

Mughal emperors had a tradition of grand garden tombs. The most important model was Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, completed around 1570, with its high dome, raised platform and surrounding garden. The Taj developed these ideas with greater refinement and on a larger scale.

The name of the chief designer is not recorded on the building. Most historians credit Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, a Persian-trained architect whose sons later described him as its builder. Mughal court histories also mention officials who supervised the work, and the calligrapher Amanat Khan, who signed the inscriptions, is one of the few artists known by name.

The complex is laid out on a rectangle roughly 560 by 300 metres. Visitors enter through a forecourt and a monumental red sandstone gateway, dated by inscription to 1057 AH (1647–48). Beyond it lies a large charbagh, a garden divided into four parts by water channels and walkways, a traditional image of paradise in Islamic culture.

Unusually, the tomb does not stand in the centre of the garden but at its northern end, on a terrace overlooking the river. It is flanked by two identical red sandstone buildings: a mosque to the west and a matching building to the east, known as the jawab (“answer”), built mainly for symmetry.

Work began around 1632. Labourers first prepared foundations near the river, which required deep wells filled with rubble and masonry to support the enormous weight on the soft riverbank soil.

The mausoleum itself is built of brick and rubble faced with white marble from Makrana in Rajasthan, about 400 kilometres away. Red sandstone for the outer buildings came from quarries near Fatehpur Sikri. Long ramps, carts and draught animals, including oxen and elephants, are said to have moved the materials, though many details of the building process come from later tradition rather than records.

Craftsmen came from across the Mughal Empire and beyond: masons, stone-cutters, inlayers, carvers, calligraphers and dome builders. The French jeweller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who visited Agra in the 1640s, wrote that some 20,000 people worked on the project. That figure is still the most commonly quoted, although it cannot be checked.

Court histories indicate that the main tomb was largely finished by around 1643, when the anniversary of Mumtaz’s death was celebrated there. Work on the surrounding buildings, the bazaars and caravanserais to the south continued until around 1653. The cost was very large; a figure of about 32 million rupees is often cited from Mughal-era accounts, but its basis is uncertain.

Architecture and decoration

The tomb stands on a square marble plinth, with a slender minaret at each corner. The minarets lean very slightly outward, which is often explained as a precaution so that they would fall away from the tomb in an earthquake.

The central structure has chamfered corners and a great arched opening (iwan) on each side. Above it rises a double dome: an outer bulbous dome on a high drum and a lower inner dome above the chamber. The finial at the top reaches roughly 73 metres above the plinth level.

Inside, an octagonal chamber holds the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan, surrounded by a finely pierced marble screen. The actual graves lie in a crypt below, following Islamic custom.

Decoration is restrained but extremely refined. Panels carved with flowers in low relief line the lower walls. Pietra dura inlay, in which cut pieces of stones such as carnelian, jasper and lapis lazuli are set into the marble, forms flowers and vines. Bands of black marble calligraphy frame the arches, with letters gradually enlarged higher up so that they appear the same size from the ground. The texts are verses from the Qur’an, chosen to evoke judgement and paradise.

Symbolism and meaning

Mughal writers called the tomb the rauza-i munawwara, the “illumined tomb”, and the name Taj Mahal seems to be a later, popular shortening linked to Mumtaz Mahal’s title. Contemporary court poets compared it to the throne of God and to the mansions of paradise.

Many historians, following the work of Wayne Begley, argue that the complex was designed as an image of paradise on the Day of Judgement. The four-part garden recalls the four rivers of paradise described in Islamic tradition, and the Qur’anic inscriptions on the gateway and the tomb include passages about the reward of the faithful. On this reading, the placement of the tomb at the end of the garden, rather than in its centre, evokes the divine throne above the gardens of heaven.

Other scholars, notably Ebba Koch, stress the building’s place in a wider plan. Agra in Shah Jahan’s time was lined with riverfront gardens belonging to the nobility, and the Taj was the grandest of them, intended to be seen from the river as well as from the land. Its perfect symmetry, white marble and gem-like decoration also expressed the ideal of a just and harmonious empire under Shah Jahan.

The monument served religious purposes too. The tomb was endowed with income from villages and markets to pay for its upkeep, readers to recite the Qur’an, and the annual commemoration (urs) of Mumtaz Mahal’s death, which was held there with great ceremony during her husband’s reign.

Shah Jahan’s later years

Shah Jahan went on to build a new capital at Delhi, including the Red Fort. In 1657 he fell seriously ill, and a war of succession broke out among his sons. The winner, Aurangzeb, deposed his father in 1658 and kept him confined in Agra Fort.

According to tradition, Shah Jahan spent his last years looking out at the Taj across the river bend. He died on 22 January 1666 and was buried beside Mumtaz in the tomb. His larger cenotaph sits to one side of hers, the only asymmetrical element in an otherwise strictly symmetrical design, which suggests the tomb was planned for her alone.

Myths and facts

The Black Taj. A popular story says Shah Jahan intended a black marble tomb for himself on the opposite bank. It derives mainly from Tavernier and later guides. Excavations at the Mehtab Bagh garden opposite the Taj revealed a riverside “moonlight garden” aligned with the mausoleum, but no evidence of a second tomb.

The workers’ hands. Another legend claims that Shah Jahan cut off the hands of the craftsmen so they could never build anything as beautiful. There is no historical evidence for this, and many of the same craftsmen are believed to have worked on later Mughal projects.

Other origins. Fringe claims that the building was originally a Hindu palace or temple have been rejected by historians, archaeologists and Indian courts, given the detailed Mughal records of its construction.

Later history

As Mughal power declined in the eighteenth century, the Taj suffered neglect and some looting, including the loss of precious fittings. During British rule parts of the garden were altered, and the viceroy Lord Curzon sponsored a major restoration in the early twentieth century, including a bronze lamp that still hangs in the tomb chamber.

After Indian independence the monument passed to the Archaeological Survey of India. Air pollution became a serious concern from the 1970s, as the marble began to yellow. In 1996 the Supreme Court of India ordered strict controls on industry in the surrounding Taj Trapezium Zone, and conservators have periodically cleaned the marble with clay packs.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1612: Prince Khurram marries Arjumand Banu Begum (Mumtaz Mahal).
• 1628: Khurram becomes emperor as Shah Jahan.
• 1631, 17 June: Mumtaz Mahal dies at Burhanpur.
• c. 1632: Work begins on the tomb at Agra.
• c. 1643: The main mausoleum is largely complete.
• 1647–48: The great gateway is dated by its inscription.
• c. 1653: The full complex is completed.
• 1658: Aurangzeb deposes Shah Jahan and confines him in Agra Fort.
• 1666, 22 January: Shah Jahan dies and is buried beside Mumtaz.
• 1983: The Taj Mahal is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The Taj Mahal brought together Persian, Central Asian and Indian building traditions in a single, perfectly balanced design. It is the high point of Mughal art, a symbol of India recognised around the world, and an enduring monument to love and mourning that still draws millions of visitors each year.