The Rest Is History - 362. The Taj Mahal: Love and Death

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

“The mutual affection and harmony between the two had reached a degree never seen between a husband and wife…” The Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, tells the story of the imperial power and strength of the Mughal Empire, and remains to this day a symbol of perfection, refinement and romance. Tom and Dominic are joined by art historian Dr Mehreen Chida-Razvi, as they delve into the origins of the Taj Mahal, the empire behind it, and its cultural and political significance throughout the centuries. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. You knew, Emperor of India Shah Jahan, that life, youth, wealth, renown all float away down the stream of time. Your only dream was to preserve forever your heart's pain. The harsh thunder of imperial power would fade into sleep like a sunset's crimson splendor but it was your hope that at least a single eternally heaved sigh would stay to grieve the sky though emeralds rubies pearls are all but as the glitter of time in the form of this white and gleaming Taj Mahal." So that, Dominic, was Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bengali writer,

the first non-European, I think, to win the Nobel Prize for literature, writing about one of the world's most famous buildings, the Taj Mahal. I guess it could be a candidate of the world's most famous buildings, the Taj Mahal. And I guess it could be a candidate for the world's most famous building. Definitely the world's most romantic building. Yeah. Built for love. It's sort of seen as a symbol, isn't it, of India, of romance, and of exoticism in the West, don't you think?

So the image of the Taj Mahal is one that newspaper travel supplement editors will always reach for when they're telling you about the image of the taj mahal is one that uh newspaper travel supplement editors will always reach for when they're telling you about the trip of a lifetime or you know stretching your horizons or it's the taj mahal that is always the building that is featured at the center of that i mean it is also very much a kind of shorthand for devotion marital love that kind of thing you know the famous person who utilized it to that effect was Princess Diana, who was it, in 1992, when she sat directly in front of it on her own without Prince Charles, as he then was, kind of making a very public statement. So it is absolutely a building that carries an entire freight of meaning, significations, Yeah. And as you say, a symbol of India abroad, but also that it's a great Muslim building built

by Muslim emperors. And so in contemporary India, not entirely uncontroversial. So we thought it would be a kind of wonderful theme for an episode of The Rest is History. We have the perfect person to guide us to the origins of the Taj, how it came to be built, history after its building. That is Dr. Mehreen Chida Razvi, who is the in-house editor for the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, world expert on the art and architecture of the period of the emperors who built it, the Mughals. Mary, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, it's my absolute pleasure. And what does the Taj mean to you?

To me, the Taj Mahal, it is an absolutely iconic building. And it, for me, stands as a historical reminder of a period of history where the syncretic nature of the Mughal Empire and the Mughal court was very much on display. And it speaks to that. And as you mentioned, there are some contemporary issues surrounding it. So it stands as that reminder to a time where things might have been a little bit better than they are right now. So give us a bit of context. Tom said that Taj Mahal dates from the era of the Mughal emperors. So for those of our listeners who are not incredibly familiar with Indian history, who are the Mughals?

Where do they come from? What do they mean? And whereabouts are we in history? So the Mughal dynasty lasts from 1526 to 1858. As you mentioned, this is a series of Muslim kings ruling over the region of South Asia. They are of a Mongol line, and they come from, in this period, Central Asia.

So Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, he is the ruler of a principality, the principality of Ferghana. The Ferghana Valley is primarily located in today's Uzbekistan. And so he's one of a series of Timurid princelings, so the great empire of Timur. His descendants are all vying for power in the Central Asian region. And Babur comes out of Thirghana with the idea of trying to reestablish Timur's great empire. But he's not able to do so. He's not militarily strong enough. So he ends up taking the province of Kabul, establishing himself there. And from Kabul, he looks into the region of South Asia as a potential area to conquer. And in that, he's following Timur because Timur had sacked

the Delhi Sultanate in 1398. And so he has this idea in his mind that he can create a new empire for himself in that region. So just to be clear, he is descended from Genghis Khan, the greatest conqueror in history, and from Timur, who maybe to people who are familiar with Elizabethan literature is better known as Tamburlain, the archetype of the great conqueror. So they have an absolute track record of going out and conquering places. And as I understand it, Babur wins his great victory that establishes himself in North India, outside Delhi. And then he goes on and he wins a battle at a place called Kanwar in 1527, which is outside the city of Agra, which is where in due course the Taj Mahal will come to be built. Does Agra have a kind of significance for the Mughals as a result of that, or is that

just coincidence? That's just coincidence. Agra was already a very important city in the region. Delhi actually had been, it was the capital of the Delhi Sultanate, the Islamic rulers of the region prior to the Mughals. But Agra was an exceptionally important city. And when Babur conquers the region of North Hindustan, as they called it, he sets up his first capital actually at Agra. So it's all looking good for the Mughals. And then

it slightly goes wrong, doesn't it, under his son who ends up in Persia, I think. Yes. Humayun, who is Babur's eldest son, when he inherits this new region, he's not as strong a figure as his father had been. He doesn't command the same loyalty as his father had done. And so there are contenders immediately trying to take this kingdom from him. He's run out of Delhi in 1540, spends 15 years wandering, trying to get aid, and ultimately ends up at the court of the Safavid Shah in Iran, and with his help is able to come back and retake what had been his kingdom. Does that introduce a Persian influence on the Mughal court? Absolutely. It helps to explain what will be done when they decide to build the Taj Mahal. Absolutely. So when Humayun is able to come back, in terms of the artistic production of the

court, some of the best Safavid court artists come back with him, first to Kabul and then to Delhi, and others join him there. So in the area of painting, the Persian tradition is very strongly impacting what becomes Mughal. But in terms of architecture, Babur, having come out of Ferghana, trying to take Samarkand, he spent time there, he spent time in Herat, and his successors do as well. So they know what imperial Timurid architecture looks like and what it's meant to look like. And that also has a very strong impact in what becomes a Mughal style. So there's all this swirl of influences, Central Asia, there's Persia, there's Hindu architecture of India, there's the Muslim architecture of India.

The Mughals established themselves as the rulers of this kind of great swirl of influences and kingdoms. So Hameon comes back, his son Akbar, he establishes himself much more securely. And then his son Jahangir, he's the ruler, but he's basically an alcoholic and an opium addict, isn't he? Is it unfair to describe him as that? Yes, he's the ruler, but he's basically an alcoholic and an opium addict, isn't he? Is it unfair to describe him as that? Yes, he is the ruler. He is addicted to opium. He is an alcoholic, but that doesn't take away from his role as emperor. He's gone down in history as one of these people who was completely ruled by his wife and he didn't do anything. He was just interested in pleasure. Spliffing up.

Yeah. But he's my favourite Mughal emperor. I think he's one of the most fascinating of them. But he was imperial. He was a proper ruler, despite his addiction to drink and to drugs. And he has a very impressive wife, doesn't he? He does, yes. Nur Jahan, his last and favourite wife. He marries her in 1612. She had previously been married and had a daughter from that first marriage. But after her first husband dies, she comes to the Mughal court and is an attendant on one of the elder royal ladies. And so Jahangir meets her, falls deeply in love with her, and they get married. And she's a very important, politically influential woman.

And so this is important for the story of the Taj Mahal because Jahangir's son, Shah Jahan, the man who will build the Taj Mahal, succeeds Jahangir. And his favorite wife is Nur Jahan's niece. Is that right? I mean, this is all very kind of game of thrones. It's a little bit incestuous, yeah. Yes. So Shah Jahan, before he's titled Shah Jahan, Prince Khurram, he's betrothed to Arjuman Banu Begum, who is Nur Jahan's niece. And that betrothal takes place in 1605. So actually before Nur Jahan is even at the court, because Nur Jahan's father is in the upper echelons of the court hierarchy and her brother as well. So they're already an important family in the Mughal court administration. Her father's effectively Jahangir. He becomes effectively his prime minister. And these

marriages then between the royal family and this Khorasani family, they make the linkages between them even stronger. So the marriage between Khurram and Arjuman Banu Begum, who's then titled Mumtaz Mahal, that happens in 1612 and Nur Jahan and Jahangir are married in 1611. So can you give us some sense of the personality of Shah Jahan? So he's more of an orthodox Muslim than his father, I think? He is. He's a more orthodox figure. He doesn't touch alcohol until he's basically forced to by his father on his, I think it's his 24th birthday. Jahangir kind of makes him, you know, take a drink. So no, he is a more orthodox figure, but he's not a fundamentalist. And this turn towards,

his internal turn towards orthodoxy, it's actually really interesting. It doesn't very much affect, you know, how he rules, his concept of rule. And in fact, two of his children end up as practicing Sufis, and that's very tolerated and supported. So yeah, he is a more orthodox figure. And so he's a great warrior, and his wife comes with him on campaign. Is that normal? I mean, is that standard behavior, or is that unusual? It was more on the unusual side. I mean, the Mughal court was peripatetic, so it moved around. It was never stationary for very extended periods of time.

And the harem did move around with the emperor as well. But for Mumtaz Mahal to accompany Shah Jahan on all his military campaigns and everywhere he went. That was unusual. There was very much a deep connection between the two of them. So Mumtaz Mahal, this is the name that is given to his wife, and that means select of the palace, is that right? Yeah, the chosen one of the palace, yes. And is it, I mean, am I being too overly romantic if I ask, was she incredibly beautiful? I mean, what did she have that made him so devoted to her, that made him want to take

her with him? I mean, she gave him 14 children. So there must have been quite a bond between them. There was this, an incredibly deep bond between them for sure. And yes, she had 14 children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. The connection between them, what was it based on? It's impossible to say because what we're told about her in the court histories, which are all written by Shah Jahan's court historians, it obviously her beauty is extolled, the kindness of her personality is extolled, her loyalty is extolled.

She must have been beautiful, but that's not enough, right, to form the kind of bond that they had. And, you know, so yeah, it's impossible for me to say, but one of the things actually, just on that, if I can quote one of his court historians. We're talking about a Muslim dynasty, you're talking about words written down for posterity. And one of Shah Jahan's court historians, when he's talking about actually the two of them, he writes that the mutual affection and harmony between the two had reached a degree never seen between a husband and wife among the classes of rulers or among the other people. And this was not merely out of sexual passion. The excellent qualities, pleasing habits, outward and inward virtues, and physical and

spiritual compatibility on both sides caused great love and affection. That's written by this court historian, Kazvini. This is written with Shah Jahan's permission because all of his histories, he approved what was being written in them. And to write about them in that fashion is really out of the ordinary. It's really remarkable that this idea of the bond is extolled to such a high degree that there obviously was great sexual chemistry that's extolled in these court histories. So all of it speaks to, in a way, this exceptional nature of the relationship between them. And Shah Jahan did have two other official wives who he consummated the marriages. He had a child with the third wife, but it was Mumtaz Mahal who

got him, who had his time and his love and his devotion. So it's reasonable to talk about this as a genuine love story. It is. It is genuinely a love story, for sure. She then dies while he's on campaign in the Deccan in Southern India. Yes. On the 17th of June, 1631, while giving birth to their 14th child. And the scale of his grief, I mean, firstly, his grief is something genuine and it is felt by one and all that the scale of his grief is something exceptional, is it? Yes. Again, from the histories, we are told that for a week he withdrew from the court and was in solitary mourning. And this is remarkable because the court activities under Shah Jahan achieved a very kind of rigid formulation. There were certain ceremonial activities which took place on a daily basis where he showed himself to the public, to his court. He was present. To

take himself out of that and to go away for a week, it was an out of the ordinary circumstance. And we're told that when he did come out after that week, he wore white, which is the color of mourning in Islam. He wore white for a period of time. His eyesight got so bad from the amount of tears he shed, he had to start wearing spectacles. Within a few years, his beard had gone completely white. So there was a very strong emotional reaction to her loss. And it led to the creation of this incredible monument that we're talking about today. So she had obviously not died in Agra, but she'd been born there, right? Is that why he decides to take her body back to Agra?

No. At the time, Agra was the most important of the imperial capitals. So Agra, Delhi, and Lahore, up until about 1643, they are the three primary imperial capitals of the Mughal Empire. Under Akbar, Feth-e-Pursikri is also one for a period of time. So the capital city moved between these different cities. And Agra, at the time of Mumtaz Mahal's death, was where it was settled. And so, you know, that was one of the reasons. But then also, very quickly, the concept of the Taj Mahal takes place.

And the space that was needed for what was intended, the location. You couldn't have had that idea of the space of the Taj constructed in Delhi. It could have been Lahore, but Lahore was the least important and also a bit more out of the central area of the empire. So Agra had the location as well as the status. This is what, I mean, this is a huge question. It's the obvious question. What is distinctive about the Taj Mahal and to what extent is it the expression of the entire culture of the Mughal empire and core? That is a huge question, Tom. Yeah, it is. I'm sorry. So what is important about the Taj Mahal. It is the culmination of the Mughal aesthetic of architecture. It is the zenith of the classical style of Mughal architecture. It is also layered with symbolism.

So the commemorative aspect of Mumtaz Mahal. But it's equally a monument built to commemorate Shah Jahan. There's layers of political symbolism associated with the monument as well. It's the epitome of the idea of Mughal funerary architecture being representative of paradise um paradise in the quran so there's layers of paradisical symbol symbolism associated with it as well and it has stood as a monument that has captivated all who've seen it um so it is this i, grand expression of a Mughal building design. One of the other layers of symbolism as well is it's also speaking to the dynastic legacy of the Mughals, because the architecture of the Taj Mahal draws very heavily on Humayun's mausoleum in Delhi, which draws very heavily on Timurid antecedents in Central Asia. So it's speaking to this long dynastic line and the political legitimacy of the line. So there's so many different layers of symbolism tied up in this monument. And so it takes 22 years to complete,

is that right? And involves a thousand elephants bringing in materials from across the world. Or is that all Orientalist exoticizing? Slightly exaggerated. The construction of the actual mausoleum, the white structure, is four years, 1632 to 1636. And the entirety of the complex, because the whole thing is planned as one unit. Because there are gardens, aren't there? Well, there's the mausoleum, the garden, a forecourt, a commercial space, and then another garden across the river. So the full complex is completed by 1643. So what is that? 11 years

is what it took to build the full complex. At the time that it's being built, is it obvious that this is something in a different league from previous mausoleums that have been built, previous tombs? Or is this, at the time, is it perceived as being part of a long tradition, the standard thing that you do, all of this kind of stuff? Both, actually, Dominic, because it's in the tradition of monumental built funerary structures by the Mughals. We only have four monumental imperial tombs, and the Taj Mahal is the culmination of those, but it only ends up being an imperial tomb because Shah Jahan

is later buried there. One of the things to remember is that this is the zenith of this tradition, but it's built for a queen. And in that aspect, there is a tradition of funerary monuments built for the queens, the empresses, but this is on a different scale for a female mausoleum. It surpasses the monumental emperor's tombs that were built before it, the three that came earlier. And it is just this expression of perfection and refinement encapsulated in the structure. But that is because of that double commemorative aspect, commemorating Mumtaz Mahal, but equally and more importantly, commemorating Shah Jahan as this perfect king of this perfect kingdom.

Can I just ask you, so on the outer face of the southern gate that leads into the gardens, there's some verses from the Quran, O thou soul which art at rest, return to thy Lord, pleased and pleasing him. Enter thou among my servants, and enter thou my paradise. So it's a very devoutly Muslim expression of piety, of the yearning, I guess, to be reunited in the afterlife. But I'm just wondering, is that seen by contemporary Muslim opinion as being a little bit excessive, this huge monument, or is it seen as being an expression of piety? So the use of Quranic phrases like that, it is an expression of piety. I mean, there's 22 verses

of the Quran on the structures of the complex, the tomb and the gateway. Partly because of precedence, there is a longer tradition of associating Mughal funerary gardens with the gardens of paradise. And this is across the Islamic world as well, but the Mughals take it to a different level. And these particular Quranic phrases, which are saying, as a believer, you enter the gardens of paradise, it has, again, double symbolism. It's not only about the religious duty of Muslims. It's about the idea that you are walking into an earthly representation of the gardens of paradise. And there's that association very strongly created with the use of these inscriptions at the Taj Mah paradise. And there's that association very strongly created with the use of these inscriptions at the Taj Mahal, but there's a precedence also at

Akbar's Mausoleum in Secandra, which is outside of Agra, where the same kind of idea is presented. Brilliant. Okay, let's take a break now. We'll come back after the break and we'll continue talking about the architecture and history of the Taj Mahal and the ways in which it has been perceived over the centuries. See you in a minute. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.

Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We're talking about the Taj Mahal with our guest Maureen Chida Razvi. And Maureen, we haven't actually discussed what the Taj Mahal means. Do we know what the name means? It means the crown of the palace. It's not how the Mughals themselves refer to the monument. In their writings, they refer to it as the Aluminum Tomb, but it was a contemporary name because we know it's referenced in certain European sources. It appears to be a corruption of Mumtaz Mahal's name being applied to the building. Right. And is it true that all the architects and the craftsmen were executed when they'd finished it so that they couldn't ever build again?

That's Arabian Nights. Or is that, as I suspect, another Orientalist fantasy? That is very much an Orientalist fantasy, Dominic. The craftsmen and the architects and the supervisors are entirely too valuable for something like that to happen. And this is an idea which gets applied to many buildings, famous buildings throughout history. But there is this idea that the Oriental despot figure does this kind of thing on a regular basis. But there is this idea that the oriental despot figure does this kind of thing on a regular basis. But no, that's not true at all. But the fact you have stories like that being spread by Europeans, the fact that they have their own name for the Taj Mahal and the name that the building comes to get, suggests that this is a building that is seen by foreigners as well as by the people in the Mughal Empire as being an exceptional structure.

And I would love to ask more about how European contemporaries, when the Azataj Mahal is being built and in the aftermath, but just before we come to that, could we just finish off the story of Shah Jahan, which is actually, I mean, it's tragic enough, he's lost his beloved wife, but it then goes even worse, doesn't it? It does, yes. Shah Jahan falls ill in 1657, and quite ill. There's a fear that he's not going to survive. Now, he has four sons, and one of them, the eldest, Dara Shukoh, had been designated the heir apparent. So he is the one who has planned to succeed his father. And he's the kind of Justin Trudeau, the Jacinda Ardern. He's kind of liberal, he's multicultural, all that kind of thing. Yes, yes. Liberal, multicultural. He's a

practicing Sufi and he has been raised and brought up with the intention. He was Shah Jahan's favorite, that he will be the next emperor. But when Shah Jahan falls ill, a war of succession breaks out. The other brothers, the other three decide they're not on board with Dara Shukoh becoming the next ruler. And so they start to gather their own forces and they make alliances between the three of them, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh. They make alliances between them to get Dara Shako out of the picture. And Aurangzeb, the third son, he's being very sneaky, let's say. He's telling his other brothers, I'm not interested in being on the throne. I will help you get there.

I will help you militarily because Aurangzeb was a great military mind. And together, we'll work together to make sure Dara Shako doesn't get on the throne. So even after Shah Jahan gets better, he's very ill for about a month. And then he gets better, he's very ill for about a month, and then he gets better. But by then, the wars between the brothers have already started. It's kind of too late to pull back. And what ultimately happens is that Aurangzeb becomes the victor in this war. With his brother's help, he is able to have Dar es Sik captured and Dara Shako is then executed.

And kind of humiliated, isn't it? He's led through the streets of Delhi in chains. Yeah. Yeah. There's the idea that, you know, you want to project this person who up until this point is adored and loved and it's known he's intended to be the next emperor. And so to publicly humiliate him in a fashion is all part of this idea of then breaking down the myth of Dara Shukoh. Because Aurangzeb has a very clear idea that he's the next one on the throne. And he needs to make sure that he's the one who commands the respect of the people. So yeah, he then backstabs his other brothers and claims the throne for himself, imprisons Shah Jahan in the fort in Agra, where for the next eight years he lives in the confines of the palace.

But then when he dies, Arangzeb has him buried in the Taj Mahal next to his mother. Yes. So when Shah Jahan dies, his body is taken by river. So one of the other children, Jahanara, who was hand in glove with Dara Shukoh, she's also imprisoned in the Agra Fort with her father. And actually after Mumtaz Mahal's death, she was the first lady of the empire. She had the status of queen, even though she was a princess. So her intention after Shah Jahan dies is that there will be grand processions, you know, through the streets to honor him as his body is taken to the Taj. But instead, it's taken at night by river to the mausoleum and buried there without

really any pomp and ceremony. And It's not until Aurangzeb himself comes to Agra, I think roughly a month after Shah Jahan dies, that any kind of grand celebrations of mourning happen. But they happen now with Aurangzeb as the emperor, without any kind of question about that because his father's now dead. And what about the story that comes from a French jeweler called Baptiste Tavernier, who visited India in the middle of the 17th century. And he says that Shah Jahan had plans to build his own tomb on the other side of the river, but these were interrupted by the war. And Aurangzeb basically scrapped that idea and shoved him in the Taj Mahal. So how much truth is there in that?

Archaeologically, there isn't any. And historically, from the Mughal perspective, there isn't any proof for this happening. I mean, Shah Jahan was an incredible architectural patron. And his histories are full of his different building projects and lots of kind of detailed information about them. It's how we know so much about the history of construction of the Taj Mahal. And there's no mention whatsoever of him planning a mausoleum for himself. It's entirely possible he would have done so had he not been deposed by his son.

But up until that point, there had not been any indication that he was planning to build his own tomb. So Tavernier is the first to mention this idea. And it's just, as you said, it's just a very brief few lines, right? There's nothing about material. There's nothing about it being a replica of the Taj. So those are ideas which come about later. And they were given further credence by the fact that, you know, I mentioned this was one huge complex that was built and there was a garden across the river. So that's the Metabagh, the moonlight garden. And it was created as a viewing area for the Taj Mahal because you then get this incredible

view of the monument reflected in the river. And you're in a garden and you're able to like see that. And, you know, by the moonlight, the idea. And there's an octagonal tank, water tank in the middle of that garden. So when that was unearthed, it kind of made people think, oh, these are the foundations of the octagonal Taj Mahal that Shah Jahan intended. But that's not the case. They weren't foundations,

it was just a water tank. So it's a lovely idea that he was intending a black Taj for himself, immediately opposite the Taj Mahal, but there's no proof of that. But it is fascinating how, as said at the beginning, that it's not just people at Shah Jahan's court who recognize the power of it, that it is Europeans as well. So there's another Frenchman, there seem to be a lot of Frenchmen at this time, François Bernier, who is a physician. And he's writing this as it's being constructed, that this monument deserves much more to be numbered among the wonders of the world than the pyramids of Egypt. So that's an incredible thing to say about a building

as it's being constructed. And to what extent do you think the global fame of the Taj Mahal owes to foreign admiration? I mean, there's often the kind of tendency that foreigners admire things more than people who live in the country. Do you think that that foreign admiration was there right from the start? It does appear that it was there from the start because we have accounts like Bernier's and Tavernier's. And they're speaking to how incredibly striking and beautiful this monument. And as you say, like saying it's up there with the great pyramids. What's really interesting is that we have records, contemporary records of Europeans who are visiting and who are proclaiming about the beauty of the site and the magnificence of the site. And one of them, he's been in the empire and he writes about

how it's one of the most beautiful buildings he's ever seen. But then he kind of questions himself and he's like, oh, is this because I've become used to the local aesthetic and maybe it's just in my head? And it's not until a visitor comes and proclaims about the beauty and the immense singularity of the Taj Mahal that he's like, okay, it is as beautiful as I think. Yeah. So lots of French people going on about how wonderful it is. The British capture Agro in 1803. It's now under their control. There is one apocryphal story that one of the viceroys, I think it was Lord William Bentinck, was planning to demolish it and auction off the marble, but apparently that's an absolute calumny. He was no Lord Elgin. But the viceroy who really becomes obsessed by it and does a great deal to preserve it is Lord Curzon, Dominic, who we had on our episode about domestic servants because he wanted to open a window, didn't he?

And there was no servant and he couldn't open the window. So he threw a log through the pane of glass. Well, Curzon was the kind of epitome of um edwardian british auteur i suppose so he's uh ethan and baliel there's a famous verse that follows him around from his time at oxford my name is george nathaniel curzon i'm a most superior person my cheek is pink my hair is sleek i dine at blenheim once a week and um when he comes in as viceroy so this is the i think he came in in 1899 and maherin he he really appreciates the Taj Mahal, doesn't he? I mean, Curzon takes it very seriously. He does.

He is the first to kind of take, in a way, to kind of take ownership and responsibility for the monument in terms of wanting to set forward a series of, you know, projects to conserve the monument, to restore the monument, to take care of it in a proper way that it hasn't been taken care of for a while. Because there is a concept in Islamic societies, the concept of waqf, which is an endowment deed, which is written for every construction. And the Waqf for the Taj Mahal designated money for its upkeep and for the payment of the attendance and that kind of thing. And that existed until 1803 when the British stopped the Waqf. And so the upkeep of the Taj had started to decrease in the very early 19th century. So when Curzon comes, he recognizes it as a site which needs to be protected,

which needs to be conserved. And he puts a lot of effort into that. I think it was something like, he puts 40,000 rupees in a single year toward its conservation. And in the previous 20 years or something, it had been just a fraction of that. So he really ups the amount of money which goes towards its upkeep. And he commissions this kind of great lamp from lampmakers in Egypt to hang in the Taj, which is still there today. He's quite a mogul figure, isn't he? I mean, he obviously quite fancied himself as the heir of the moguls ruling India. But there's also a sense in which into the 20th century, right the way up to independence, the Taj is quite an influence on the way that the British start designing their imperial structures, say the Victorian Memorial in Calcutta, and then Edward Lutyens' designs for buildings in New Delhi.

Do you think that the Taj has an influence on that? I don't know if I would say the Taj itself, but certainly Mughal architecture, the style of Mughal architecture, the concept of their buildings, because that point, Tom, it brings up the political power of architecture. You're creating structures which are visual stamps of rulership and ownership, you know, on land. And the Mughal tradition of architecture is one which just projects imperial power, right, and strength. And so when the British are now in a ruling position and are creating their own structures, they're drawing very heavily on the Mughal tradition of architecture. And you end up with this, I hate the term, but quote unquote, Indo-Saracenic style of architecture, which is kind of a British version,

but drawing very heavily on the Mughal tradition because of the symbolic associations of it. And because the British take, because they value the building, during the Second World War, it's covered in scaffolding, isn't it, to protect it from Japanese bombing. And again, obviously that happens again in the wars between India and Pakistan in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Yeah, absolutely. again in the wars between India and Pakistan in the late 1960s, early 1970s. But when India becomes independent in 1947, the status of the Taj Mahal as a Muslim building means that it has an unusual position, doesn't it? In kind of Indian iconography, it's the most famous Indian building.

It's a symbol of India abroad, but it's obviously not a Hindu building. ingrained in Indian history. You wouldn't have had the modern country of India without this Muslim history that they're currently so eager to deny. And so at partition, the Taj becomes this symbol of this new country, but it's because it's considered a symbol of India. The fact that it's a Muslim structure doesn't really play into its symbolic association with the country at that point. It's just a symbol of the incredible historical power of the region of which the Mughals were embedded in. But has that, you hinted that it has, has that changed in recent years? In very recent history, there's been a great push by the current BJP government to... So that's a kind of Hindu majoritarian government?

Yeah, it's a Hindu majority government, but they promote a very specific ideology, ideology of Hindutva, which places the Hindu past of India on a platform which is meant to crush the other pasts of the country. So including Islam? Including the Muslim past. I don't think it's too strong to say that. And one of the ways that they've gone about doing this is to actually try to erase the Muslim history of the region. So the most famous building in India, internationally, I mean, I read that Taj Mahal is apparently the most popular name for Indian restaurants in Britain. That's a measure of its fame abroad. What do you do with a building that famous? One way, it seems, is I was reading up on

this, that there've been a number of court cases, one of which got taken to the Indian High Court, another to the Allahabad High Court, claiming that actually it was originally a Hindu palace, which seems implausible, and in both cases was thrown out. So that obviously hasn't worked. No, it hasn't worked. But what's really frightening is that the court cases have proceeded to that extreme level where the idea... So let me back up a little bit. So these court cases, which have been undertaken, they've been undertaken by BJP leadership in order to have the Taj Mahal proclaimed a Hindu structure.

Because in their non-factual version of history, this was a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva built in the 12th century, and that it was stolen by Shah Jahan and turned into the Taj Mahal. And this is complete fabrication. Yeah, fantasy, fabrication. I was trying to think of the nice term to use. And what's really frightening is that you have government bodies which are pushing this new version of history. So the court case that you were, one of the ones you referred to, Tom, the one last year that went to the Allahabad court, there was a petition filed by one of the BJP leaders to have, there's chambers in the platform of the Taj Mahal, and there was a court case to have them opened because he was claiming that there were idols of Hindu gods in those rooms, and that they

had been there since the construction of the monument and therefore proving it was a Hindu temple. And one of the supportive statements he made in this court case, or one of the statements he made to support this claim, came from the National Council of Educational Research and Training, which is the government body in India, which approves what goes into the history textbooks and that kind of thing. And that body said that there's no primary sources that exist to confirm Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal, which is, again, complete fantasy. Because we've got the Mughal documents, we've got documents from the library and the archives of the Rajas of Ambar, who are the ones who sold the land to Shah Jahan. And then also we're supplying the marble for the construction.

We have all the European sources, the contemporary sources speaking about what is happening at the time. And so it's really quite frightening that you have this entire mechanism underway at the moment to support the idea that this monument is not Muslim and that it was Hindu. And that actually has, it speaks to the incredible power of the visual, right? That you look at the structure, you think Mughal power, you think Shah Jahan, you think Manthaz Mahal. And what the BJP wants is to remove that association and give it a Hindu association. And the power of this monument was recognized, I mean, centuries ago. So in 1761, so this is post Aurangzeb, you're beginning to have the breakdown of centralized power in the Mughal court. And

one of the Hindu rajas takes the province of Agra in 1761. And one of his court priests suggests at that time, turning the Taj Mahal into a temple. So to make it a Hindu monument. So there's no idea being projected that it was Hindu, but there is the idea that we should claim it and take it away. I suppose in a way, it's a tribute to the incredible power and beauty of the Taj Mahal that all kinds of people want to claim it. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I mean, it is. It speaks to its incredible importance. It speaks to its singularity. And to its romance. I mean, the romance of the story, I agree. It's so important to it. Whether it would be evident that it was a monument to love, if you didn't know the backstory, I'm not sure, but the backstory definitely adds to the

sense of wonder when you go to it. It definitely does. We went to store it on our honeymoon. So I'm very committed to the idea that it is a monument to love. No, no, it is for sure. And one of the, I don't know if you've come across this, but there is a, I don't know how far advanced it is, but there's a planned complex being built in Dubai, the Taj Arabia, which is centered around a replica of the Taj Mahal, except it's supposed to be three times larger. And it's being billed as the wedding destination of the world, replicating the quintessential monument to love. And on that hideous note, maybe we should thank you for guiding us around this most wonderful and beautiful and romantic of buildings.

Thank you, Maureen. No, thank you. It was my pleasure to be here. And thank you everyone for listening. and we'll be back very soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman.

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