The sumptuousness of the most famous mausoleum in the world, the Taj Mahal, places it at the opposite extreme from traditional Muslim burials, in which the body, wrapped in a shroud, is deposited directly into the ground, in a grave covered by a simple stone. It perpetuates the garden tomb tradition instituted in the Mughal Empire, where there are several examples of rulers whose spouses actively participated in the design of their husbands' tombs.
Mareagle of the world
Upon the death of the second Mughal emperor, Humayun, his widow Haji Begum ordered the construction of a magnificent mausoleum of white marble and red sandstone in Delhi. This monument is one of the earliest examples of Mughal architecture and the first garden mausoleum in the Indian subcontinent.
Empress Nur Jahan, wife of Emperor Jahangir, and daughter of his main advisor, the Persian Itimad Ud Daula, designed the funerary monuments for both of them. The tomb of Itimad Ud Daula is a delicate white marble construction, a direct precursor of the Taj Mahal. It was also built in Agra on the banks of the Yamuna River, in the center of a garden. Composed of a low, square building with a minaret in each corner, topped by a low and angular dome, it shows the first works of hard stone inlays with vegetal themes that will reach their maximum expression in the Taj Mahal.
At the beginning of the 1913th century, when this work had practically fallen into oblivion, the versatile Bengali artist Abanindranath Tagore offered a special tribute to the Taj Mahal. Belonging to a prestigious family of artists, including Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Prize winner in Literature in XNUMX, he undertook arduous work to recover Indian history and artistic traditions.
In an oil painting entitled “The Death of Shah Jahan” he revives the Mughal miniature style to depict a scene in which the dying emperor from his confinement in the Fort Rojo from Agra looks towards the Taj Mahal, his great work, depicted in the distance, while his daughter sits at his feet. In the work, he combines history and emotion. This painting, which won several medals, became one of his masterpieces and a reference for modern Indian art.
In the Islamic world, burial sites are places frequented in search of relaxation, rest or meditation. They also become places of pilgrimage when the buried person has acquired important merits. Pilgrimage is made to the tombs of saints, poets or rulers to establish a certain bond with the deceased. Paradoxically, the Taj Mahal has aroused worldwide interest due to the history it represents, but even more so due to the aesthetic attraction caused by the purity of its proportions and the captivating beauty of each of its details.
Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India
The Mausoleum, in figures
Mareagle of the world
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Content coordinated together with María Jesús Iron, Asia Research Group (GIA)
