asher introduction to taj mahal

8/18/2019 Asher Introduction to Taj Mahal

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An Introduction to the Taj Mahal

Catherine B. Asher

The Taj Mahal is without doubt India’s most famous monument (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. The Taj Mahal. Photo by Rachita Jain

Annually, thousands of Indian and international tourists come to visit this white marble tomb

placed in a spectacular garden complex. The Taj is attractive to tourists for various reasons: it is

one of the greatest monuments in the world, one of its Seven Wonders, is associated with

eternal love and is one of India’s greatest assets. Few, having experienced the tomb and its

garden, leave unimpressed, for the dazzling white of the mausoleum’s marble whose color

changes subtly as the earth turns, the absolute symmetry of the architectural design, as well as

the sheer scale of the massive complex leave most in awe. On a more factual note, this

impressive site was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628 !58) after the death of his

favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, in 1631. Most of the complex was built between 1632 and 1647/8.

Although repairs, restorations and even changes, especially in the plantation of the garden,

have transpired over the last 350 years, the overall complex remains consistent with Shah

Jahan’s original vision.


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The Mughals and Shah Jahan

The first Mughal, Babur, traced his lineage from both the Mongol Genghis Khan (d. 1227) and

the great Central Asian warlord, Timur (d. 1405), whose 15th-century successors produced art

and architecture that became the gold standard of artistic creation in the Persian speaking

world. Babur defeated the last independent Muslim ruler of north India in 1526. He only ruled for

four years but introduced into the subcontinent, the Timurid tradition of ordered and regular

gardens, in which the land was divided by water channels and pools. While such gardens,

known as charbagh or four part gardens, are usually considered paradises on earth, for Babur

and his successors, these gardens had a political meaning, that is, they were considered as

visual metaphors for the Mughals’ ability to order and rule a land and people that Babur

considered to be chaotic and unruly.

Babur’s son and successor, Humayun, did little to enhance Mughal authority, and for a 15-year

period was forced to flee India, being able to return in 1555 and reclaim the Mughal throne.

Humayun died a year later and was succeeded by his son, Akbar, who ruled for nearly 50 years

(1556 !1605). Under Akbar’s long reign, the empire was enlarged and consolidated to cover

most of the northern subcontinent reaching to the Deccan. Rather than punish Rajput princes

and others whose territory Akbar enfolded into the Mughal empire, Akbar included these

defeated elite into his own administrative and military system. He ensured loyalty from these

newcomers by often marrying their daughters. Further stabilizing the new empire, currency and

modes of taxation were standardized. Policies promoting tolerance among India’s various

religious communities were adopted. As Akbar’s empire grew, he added forts and palaces

across the land as a visual reminder of his ever increasing authority and power. Among his first

architectural projects was the tomb he provided for his father, Humayun, which served as an

important model for the future Taj Mahal (Fig. 2).


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Fig. 2. Humayun's Tomb, West Facade, Delhi. Photo by Mehreen Chida-Razvi

Upon Akbar’s death in 1605, his son Jahangir ascended the throne, ruling until his death in

1627. The empire he inherited was strong, stable and wealthy, and Jahangir made few

significant changes to policies and practices established by Akbar. Jahangir continued to build,

although he is better known for his passion for painted albums and manuscripts as well as for

his careful observations of nature. Military campaigns were not undertaken by the emperor but

rather by his highly competent son, Khurram, the future Shah Jahan. Prince Khurram was the

favored heir, until the early 1620s when Jahangir’s powerful wife, Nur Jahan, began to promote

another of Jahangir’s sons to be next in line for the throne. Khurram rebelled and established a

counter-court; but within a year after Jahangir’s death, this prince proclaimed himself emperor,

assuming a title that his father had given him after a successful military campaign, Shah Jahan,

‘King of the World’.

Shah Jahan ruled for 30 years, continuously promoting himself as a semi-divine ruler who was

fully cognizant of the value of the visual to achieve these ends (Fig. 3).


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Fig. 3. Shah Jahan on a Globe

Both his portraiture, which often depicted him literally as King of the World as he stands on a

globe, and his highly symbolic architecture were intended to showcase him as belonging to a

lineage of great rulers.1 Shah Jahan likened himself to the just king Solomon, something his

Ottoman predecessor had done some 100 years earlier. The impression is of an aloof, perhaps

even arrogant ruler, but historical sources indicate a more human side of this Mughal emperor.

Prince Khurram married Arjumand Banu Begum, later to bear the title of Mumtaz Mahal, in 1612

after a five-year engagement, and she became his constant companion, even accompanying

him on all his military campaigns until her death in 1631. Women had long had a major role in

1Ebba Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,

2001).


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the outcome of Mughal politics. For example, Akbar often sought the council of his mother, but

as we have in this case of Akbar’s mother, it was more often the council of senior female elites

that could make or break relationships.2 Jahangir’s powerful wife, Nur Jahan, was a notable

exception, for she was in many ways the de facto ruler, not a behind-the-scene Queen Mother,

as her aging husband’s health deteriorated. Similarly, Mumtaz Mahal, a niece of Nur Jahan, had

great influence over her husband, although we do not know specific examples. Chronicles

reveal that although Shah Jahan had two other wives, Mumtaz Mahal remained his soulmate

throughout their 19 year marriage.3 During this time Mumtaz Mahal gave birth to 14 children,

half of whom survived. But shortly after delivering her last child, she became extremely weak,

called for her husband and died. The devastated emperor went into mourning, not interacting

with his court for a good week and then, for the next two years, continuously grieved.4 In the

meantime the queen was buried temporarily in a garden in Burhanpur, the city in the Deccan

where she had died; six months later her body was interred and moved to Agra at a site chosen

for her mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, which was the result of an exchange of land from a high-

ranking noble.5 Shah Jahan long outlived his wife, dying in 1666. The last eight years of his life,

however, were not spent as an active emperor, but rather by 1658 he had been deposed by one

of his sons, Aurangzeb. He was imprisoned in his Agra fort, overlooking the Taj Mahal, until his

death, whereupon he was interred next to Mumtaz Mahal.

The Tradition of Mughal Funereal Architecture

Following the Timurid tradition, the Mughals were great patrons of the arts including painting,

architecture and luxury arts such as jade carving, textile production, jewelry, metal objects,

military paraphernalia and more. The other contemporary Muslim dynasties of this time, the

Ottomans of Turkey and the Safavids of Iran also engaged in similar production and

consumption to prove their elite status. But the Mughals, more than any other Islamic house,

engaged in the construction of tombs, particularly during the late 16th, through 17th centuries, a

2

Ruby Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2005), 121-36, 205 !07.3

Ebba Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra (London: Thames andHudson, 2006), 18. This is the most up-to-date scholarly study of the Taj Mahal and should be consultedto enrich and enhance this brief introductory essay.4

Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal , 20, W.E. Begley and Z.A. Desai, Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb, an Anthology of Seventeenth-century Mughal and European Documentary Sources (Cambridge, MA. and

Seattle: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture and University of Washington Press, 1989), 29 !39.5

Begley and Desai, Taj Mahal , 169 !71.


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timeframe that is roughly concurrent with the construction of the Taj Mahal. Tomb construction

had been practiced in the subcontinent at least as early as the 10th century in what is today

Pakistan, where Muslims had assumed political authority in the eighth century. Once Muslim

rulers established themselves in central north India by the beginning of the 13th century,

mausolea were built for rulers and their elite. Since the Mughals controlled a vast amount of

territory, increasing numbers of elite were required for the military and administration, but all the

same why are there so many extant Mughal tombs? Ebba Koch has suggested that tomb

construction may essentially be a form of estate planning.6 That is, tombs in Mughal India,

always set in gardens, were exempt from the customary requirement that land must revert to the

state upon the landholder’s death. While many tombs intended for the elite survive, it is the

imperial Mughal mausolea that attract the most attention.

The first major Mughal imperial tomb complex was the one provided by Akbar for his father,

Humayun, in Delhi close to the shrine of an important Muslim saint, Nizamuddin Auliya, and the

then Mughal fort today known as the Purana Qila (Fig. 2). Humayun’s tomb was completed in

1571 and designed by a father-son team from Bukhara trained in both structural and landscape

architecture. This large domed structure is a Baghdadi octagon, that is, an octagon with four

alternating long and short sides. It sits on a high plinth in the middle of a charbagh garden. In

overall scale, design and garden plan, the structure belongs to the Timurid tradition. The interior

too, consisting of a central chamber surrounded by eight smaller rooms in a plan known as

hasht bihisht or eight paradise is also Timurid in inspiration. The use of red sandstone as the

structure’s veneer, detailed with white marble trim is part of a longstanding tradition in north

Indian architecture, particularly in buildings associated with Muslim patrons. Placing the tomb in

a garden setting is probably a Mughal innovation. The garden can be read on two levels, one as

an earthly paradise and the other as a symbol of political control as introduced by Babur.

Following Timurid tradition, Humayun’s tomb was probably designed as a Mughal dynastic

tomb; although no other emperor was buried there, a number of royal elite later were interred in

Humayun’s tomb.

When Akbar died in 1605, Jahangir commenced his tomb complex on the outskirts of Agra,

today known as Sikandra, but then called Bihishtabad, meaning the ‘Abode of Paradise’ (Fig. 4).

6Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal , 28.


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Fig. 4. Akbar's tomb at Sikandra. Photo by Rachita Jain

Like Humayun’s tomb and later the Taj Mahal, Akbar’s tomb is also set in a walled garden

complex with waterways that divide the complex into four main units. The tomb, though, as well

as the tomb later built for Jahangir in Lahore, has no dome, but its upper terrace is left open, to

conform to a passage in the tomb’s inscription: ‘May [Akbar’s] soul shine like the rays of the sun

and the moon in the light of God’.7 An element in common with the Taj Mahal is the accessible

underground crypt where the royal deceased are interred, for in the Muslim tradition the dead

are to be buried six feet beneath the ground. The cenotaphs marking other floors would mirror

the actual ones below ground. All imperial Mughal tombs have elaborate entrance gates, and

Akbar’s tomb is no exception. Two features of its gate reappear at the Taj Mahal. One feature is

the four white marble minarets that mark the corners of the entrance; at both Jahangir’s tomb

and the Taj Mahal, similar minarets will be placed not on the entrance, but at each corner of the

plinth. A second feature is the long inscription which embellishes both sides of the gate. This is

a Persian poem especially written for this monument and designed by the calligrapher ‘Abd al-

Haqq Shirizi, who was honored with the title Amanat Khan. The poem praises the deceased

emperor, Akbar, and the patron, Jahangir, but ends with verses inviting the visitor to enter the

gardens of paradise.8 While imperial Mughal gardens, especially those associated with tombs,

7Edmund W. Smith, Akbar’s Tomb, Sikandarah, near Agra, Archaeological Survey of India, New Imperial

Series, 35 (Allahabad: F. Luker, Superintendent Government Press, 1909), 35.8

Smith, Akbar’s Tomb, 30 !35.


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are generally associated with visions of paradise, this poem on the complex’s entrance gate

makes this reference clear.

Paradise, in Islam, is the reward for the true believer on the Day of Judgment. Sufis, mystically

inclined holy men, were believed to be among those to surely find a place in paradise. The

tombs of important Sufi saints, most notably the tombs of the Chishti saints, Moinuddin in Ajmer

and Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi, were made of white marble and had associations with sanctity

and purity. Over time, structures made predominately of white marble were made for the use of

the emperor and his immediate family, but not for others. Jahangir’s queen Nur Jahan

constructed a white marble tomb that was richly inlaid with multi-colored stones for her mother

who died in 1621 and her father who died shortly afterward. Nur Jahan’s father was Shah

Jahan’s finance minister and very close to Jahangir, but not of royal blood. Thus the tomb’s

appearance as pure white marble from a distance that changes to one of multiple colors as one

comes nearer is probably a reflection of the mother’s and father’s elite but not royal status.

Although the tomb was built for husband and wife, it is known as the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula,

after the father’s official title. The tomb, completed in 1626-8, like other imperial Mughal

mausolea, sits in the center of a walled charbagh and its ground floor adheres to the hasht

bihisht plan. The second story, consisting of a central chamber enclosed with exquisitely carved

screens, is capped by a truncated pyramidal vault. Each corner of the plinth is marked by a

short minaret. While the complex is smaller than any tomb intended for an emperor, its inlaid

décor gives the structure an unprecedented elegance. Not surprisingly, floral and geometric

designs are found, but more innovative are the images of cypress trees, fruit and slender-

necked vessels for nectar inlaid into the white marble surface. This imagery, drawn from

classical Persian poetry and the Quran, is intended to place the complex in a paradisiacal

setting.

The Taj Mahal

The white marble domed structure that best represents the Mughal fascination with the imagery

of paradise in a funereal setting is the Taj Mahal. While today the Taj Mahal and its garden

complex appear to sit alone along Agra’s Yamuna riverfront, in fact it was one of many—

admittedly the largest—of garden complexes built by Mughal elite that lined the river’s banks. 9

9Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal , 24 !31.


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The Taj complex though was the only one that spanned both sides of the river. On the south

side was the mausoleum and its garden, while across from it was the Mahtab/Mehtab Bagh,

Moonlight Garden, with its reflecting pool.

Most visitors to the Taj Mahal think of the marble tomb and its garden as the complex, but there

is much more, for this massive complex was almost a city within the city of Agra, then the

Mughal capital and known officially as Akbarabad (Figs. 5, 6 and 7 from Ebba Koch).

Fig. 5. Site Plan of the Taj Complex by Ebba Koch


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Fig. 6. The first plan of the Taj Complex, by Thomas & William Daniel. Courtesy Ebba Koch

Fig.7. Satellite Image of Taj Complex. Courtesy Ebba Koch

We can roughly divide the complex into four areas: an area for four main markets known today

as Taj Ganj, the forecourt into the tomb’s main garden; the tomb and other buildings in the main

garden, and the Mahtab Bagh across the river. Taj Ganj held at each of its four corners, large

enclosed markets with multiple shops whose goods were praised by Persian panegyrists and

near contemporary European travelers. While the gates of Taj Ganj still survive, much of the

original construction has been replaced or remodeled to serve the needs of backpackers and

locals. The forecourt is a spacious area before the entrance into the tomb‘s garden with a

double row of shops radiating from the east and west entrances, the income of which helped

maintain the complex. Two corners of the forecourt hold small uninscribed tombs, while the

other two corners served as residential quarters for the complex’s attendants.


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The dominant feature of the forecourt is the stunning entrance gate located in the center of the

north wall that leads to the main garden complex (Figs. 8a and 8b).

Fig. 8a & 8b. The Great Gate, Darwaza-i-Rauza. Photo by Rachita Jain

This large arched gate, faced with red sandstone, recalls the entrance to Akbar’s tomb (Fig. 9),

but chattri s (small domed kiosks) mark each corner not the minarets found on Akbar’s tomb.


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The entrance gates to both Akbar’s tomb and the Taj Mahal bear inscriptions designed by the

same calligrapher, Amanat Khan. While those on Akbar’s tomb were in Persian, the inscriptions

on the Taj Mahal’s entrance gate are drawn from the Quran and are thus in Arabic. The theme

of each is similar, for they invite the believer to enter paradise.10

Fig. 9.The Entrance Gate to Akbar's Tomb at Sikandra. Photo by Rachita Jain

Passing through the entrance gate the white marble mausoleum set at the end of this first

garden dominates the skyline. Between the entrance and the tomb is the long rectangulargarden divided into four quadrants by wide waterways that meet at a central pool that

contemporary texts equate with al-Kausar,11 a Quranic chapter which likens God’s generosity to

a pool of abundance. Known in contemporary texts as the ‘paradise-like garden’,12 its name

matches the invitation inscribed on the entrance gate. Although we do not know exactly how this

garden was planted, it is likely that flowers such as marigolds, roses and poppies, fruit and

shade trees including cypress, associated with the beloved in Persian poetry, graced this one.

The tomb is placed centrally on a high plinth at the garden’s end overlooking the river. To keep

the plinth and its components from sliding into the river, wells were sunk into the ground andthen filled with stone and iron.13 At the plinth’s west end is a large mosque faced with red

10Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal , 128. For all the Quranic inscriptions, see Begley and Desai, Taj Mahal ,

195 !231.11

Begley and Desai, Taj Mahal , 80.12

Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal, 137.13

Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal, 96.


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sandstone and white marble trim surmounted by three marble faced domes. It is still used by

Agra’s Muslim community today for Friday congregational prayer. On the east is a building

identical in appearance, providing symmetry and balance. At each corner of the plinth,

connected to the mosque and its counterpart, are red sandstone towers. Although not

accessible to the public today, the north towers would have provided good river views, while

others contained a well, latrines and other rooms.

The centrally placed tomb sits on a marble platform atop the riverfront plinth. Each of the

corners is marked by a tall slender minaret. The tomb, like Humayun’s tomb, is a Baghdadi

octagon, and its interior is a more sophisticated version of the hasht bihisht plan used at

Humayun’s tomb.

Four types of decoration dominate the mausoleum: the white marble facing procured from the

quarries at Makrana about 365 kilometers away; the bands of inscriptions embellishing the

exterior and interior; the carved floral motifs on both the tomb’s interior and exterior dado; and

the pietra dura inlay on the imperial cenotaphs and their surrounding screen. Marble as the

main facing material, not just for decorative motifs, as noted earlier, was associated with the

tombs of saints and over time with royalty; moreover, marble absorbs light and changes color

with each change of the day, and since, in the Muslim tradition, God’s presence is often

associated with light, the tomb takes on spiritual overtones (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10. The Taj Mahal from the South. Photo by Rachita Jain


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Underscoring the spiritual are the 25 Quranic inscriptions that appear on the complex. These

further develop the theme of paradise as promised for the faithful on the Day of Judgment

expressed on the great entrance. Amanat Khan had crafted the text so that all the letters look to

the viewer as if they are the same size but, in fact, he has rendered those portions distant from

the ground in a larger format. Not only would the inscriptions be seen, but also, in the 17th

century, the melodic chanting of the tomb’s Quranic readers would reverberate throughout the

tomb as they prayed for the deceased queen’s soul.

In addition to inscriptions addressing paradise, are floral motifs rendered in marble along the

interior and exterior lower wall. These flowers had a political meaning as well, for Mughal

chroniclers and poets used floral imagery and metaphors to refer to members of the royal

family, calling Shah Jahan himself, ‘the spring of the flower garden of justice and generosity’.14

These floral patterns are carved in highly naturalistic way, only upon careful reflection is it

apparent that the leaves and flowers do not belong to any living plant. Rather these are flora

that could only exist in God’s realm, that is, paradise. Similar floral motifs are found on the two

imperial cenotaphs placed centrally on the main interior chamber. These are not carved in high

relief, but are made of semi-precious stones, predominately red in color, inlaid into the marble.

The cenotaphs are surrounded by an octagonal marble screen also inlaid with similar colored

stones, replacing the original enameled gold one, as during his lifetime Shah Jahan was worried

the gold would attract looters (Fig. 11).

14Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal, 223 !24.


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Fig. 11. Tomb Chamber and Inlaid Marble Screen surrounding the Cenotaphs. Copyright ASI

The Mahtab Bagh is placed directly opposite the Taj Mahal on the river’s north bank (Figs. 12a

and 12b).


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Fig. 12a. The Mahtab Bagh as viewed from the Taj Mahal. Photo by Rachita Jain

Fig. 12b. The view of the Taj Mahal, Mihman Khana and the mosque from the Mahtab Bagh. Photo by

Rachita Jain

The garden with its large reflecting pool was known from Mughal times, but silting caused by

continuous flooding covered the pool and it was essentially forgotten. Instead a fictitious

account of a second Taj Mahal, this one to have been built in black stone, that was first

mentioned by a late 17th-century European merchant, spread like wildfire and was perpetuated

over time. Excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India in the 1990s unearthed the original

Mughal garden squashing the myth of the black Taj.

The tomb complex was commenced six months after the queen’s death and by June 1632, the

first anniversary of her death, known as ‘urs, that is, the marriage of her soul with God, was

commemorated in solemn ceremonies involving prayer and the distribution of largess to the

needy. Court historians used the occasion of the annual ‘urs to indicate progress towards the

complex’s completion. Europeans too wrote about the stages of construction, although it

appears their observations were made from a distance, not the result of having examined the

site first-hand.


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Today the Taj Mahal complex is a world heritage tourist site. Anyone who can afford the

entrance fee can visit the site. However this was not the case during Mughal times. Only those

close to the royal family had access to the tomb garden. While many may have arrived on

roads, Shah Jahan preferred to visit the tomb on a boat and would enter the complex via water

gates, now closed, on the great plinth. Few Europeans prior to the 18th century set foot in the

complex. An exception was Francois Bernier, a French physician who had access to the royal

family later in the 17th century, who was allowed to enter the Taj’s grounds, although he was

denied access to the tomb itself on the grounds that he was not a Muslim.15

When Shah Jahan died in 1666 after being imprisoned by his son and successor, Aurangzeb,

for eight years, he was buried in the Taj Mahal next to his wife. The question is: was this always

his intention? Texts are silent on this issue, but one of the Taj Mahal’s official names, Rauza-i-

Munavvara, ‘the Illumined Tomb’, an epithet shared with the Prophet Muhammad's tomb in

Medina, suggests that Shah Jahan always intended the Taj Mahal to be his tomb as well. He

wished history to remember him, like the Prophet Muhammad, to conform to the Islamic

theological concept of a Perfect Man. It would seem unlikely that the queen’s tomb would have

been given the same name as the Prophet’s tomb, since he was a man, unless Shah Jahan

saw it as his final resting place as well.

No aspect of this complex was left to chance. Every measurement was carefully recorded in

historical chronicles, and clearly the tomb and garden complex were designed by someone with

an extraordinary vision. We know from contemporary texts the names of a number of architects

who were engaged in the construction of Shah Jahan’s numerous building projects, many of

them built concurrently with the Taj Mahal, but these same chronicles are silent on the architect

of the Taj Mahal. Only the calligrapher, Amanat Khan, is named. Clearly architects and

engineers worked on the massive complex, but by leaving these players anonymous, it is the

patron, Shah Jahan, whose role is highlighted.

15Francois Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668 , trans. & annotated Archibald

Constable, 2nd

ed., Rev. Vincent A. Smith (London: Humphrey Milford and Oxford University Press, 1916),298.


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Selected Bibliography

Asher, Catherine B. The Architecture of Mughal India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1992.

———. ‘Multiple Memories: Lives of the Taj Mahal’. Crossing Cultures: Conflict/Migration/

Convergence. Ed. Jaynie Anderson. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 2008. 614 !20.

———. India before Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Begley, Wayne E. ‘Amanat Khan and the Calligraphy on the Taj Mahal’. Kunst des Orients 12

(1978-79): 5 !39.

Begley, Wayne E. and Z.A. Desai. Taj Mahal: the Illumined Tomb: An Anthology of

Seventeenth-Century Mughal and European Documentary Sources. Cambridge, MA. and

Seattle: Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture and University of Washington Press, 1989.

Bernier, Francois. Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668 . Trans. & annotated Archibald

Constable. 2nd ed. Rev. Vincent A. Smith. London: Humphrey Milford and Oxford University

Press, 1916.

Koch, Ebba. Mughal Architecture: An Outline of Its History and Development, 1526 ! 1858 .

Munich: Prestel, 1991.

———. Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays. Delhi: Oxford University

Press, 2001.

———. The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra. London: Thames and

Hudson, 2006.

———. ‘The Taj Mahal: Architecture, Symbolism and Urban Significance’. Muqarnas 22 (2005):

138-49.


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Lal, Ruby. Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World . Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2005.

Lowry, Glenn D. ‘Humayun’s Tomb: Form, Function and Meaning in Early Mughal Architecture’.

Muqarnas 4 (1987): 133-48.

Pal, Pratapaditya, Janice Leoshko, Joseph M. Dye III, Stephen Markel. The Romance of the Taj

Mahal . Los Angeles and London: Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Thames and Hudson,

1989.

Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Ruggles, D. Fairchild. ‘Humayun’s Tomb and Garden: Typologies and Visual Order’. Gardens in

the Time of the Great Mughal Empires: Theory and Vision. Ed. Attilio Petruccioli. Leiden: Brill,

1997. 173 !86.

Smith, Edmund W. Akbar’s Tomb, Sikandarah, near Agra. Archaeological Survey of India, New

Imperial Series, 35. Allahabad: F. Luker, Superintendent Government Press, 1909.

Tillotson, Giles. Taj Mahal . New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2008.

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