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Updated: June 1, 2025
For in 1658 his son, Aurungzebe, deposed him and for the rest of his life he was imprisoned in these walls. His grandfather, Akbar, the other great Agra builder, was made of sterner stuff. All Shah Jahan's creations the Taj, the marble mosque, the palaces both here and at Delhi, even the great Jama Masjid at Delhi, have a certain sensuous quality.
I know that I ought to do with the Taj as I was obliged to do with Niagara see it fifteen times, and let my mind gradually get rid of the Taj built in it by its describers, by help of my imagination, and substitute for it the Taj of fact. It would be noble and fine, then, and a marvel; not the marvel which it replaced, but still a marvel, and fine enough.
The two had settled upon this action; and when the dark hours came Taj al-Muluk and Aziz went to Aziz's lodgings and there passed that night, and the Prince was heart smitten, taking no pleasure in food or in sleep; for melancholy was heavy upon him and he was agitated with longing for his beloved.
Then Taj al-Muluk sat down to converse with his father's Wazir and with Aziz, and he acquainted them with what had befallen him; after which they said to him, "During that delay we returned to thy father and gave him to know that thou didst enter the palace of the Princess and didst not return therefrom, and thy case seemed doubtful to us.
The tomb of her father, built by that rare woman, Noor Mahal, she who sleeps in the Taj, is a marble structure of exquisite proportions, and quite unlike others because of the great number and extent of the perforated screens of marble of which it is principally composed.
By that same architectural gesture of grief which caused Jehan at Agra to erect the Taj Mahal in memory of a dead wife and a cold hearthstone, so the Bon Ton hotel, even to the pillars with red-freckled monoliths and peacock-backed lobby chairs, making the analogy rather absurdly complete, reared its fourteen stories of "elegantly furnished suites, all the comforts and none of the discomforts of home."
Before leaving Agra one should either visit the Taj Mahal for a final look, or, from the Jasmine Tower of the palace, gaze through the intervening two miles of space to catch its shadowy outline as seen by Shah Jahan during those seven solitary years of vigil.
I was rejoiced to think I would look again upon the Taj; and the prospect of living with it was a real enchantment; but I pondered most the kind of house that would be provided for the General Commanding the District, how many the dining-room would seat, and whether it would have a roof of thatch or of corrugated iron I prayed against corrugated iron. I confess these my preoccupations.
Replied Taj al-Muluk and Aziz, "Do what seemeth good to thee, indeed there is a blessing on the grey beard; more specially on those who, like thyself, are conversant with the conduct of affairs: so tell us what occurreth to thy mind." Rejoined the Wazir "It is my counsel that we hire thee a shop in the stuff bazar, where thou mayst sit to sell and buy.
The two miles' drive along an excellent road was delightful, and the approach to the Taj has been laid out with much skill as a beautiful bit of landscape garden. This care is due to Lord Curzon, who has taken Agra and its monuments into his especial keeping.
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