The Taj Mahal - Architekture of a Love Story
Article of the Month
Publisher: ExoticIndiaArt - 2007
Publication date: 2001
Format / Quality: Pdf
Size: 231 kb
On the hot, flat plains outside Burhanpur the queen lay dead. Her husband's prolonged war against Khan Jahan Lodi was almost at a close and soon the traitor's head would be displayed on a pike high above the city gates. But on this day talk of war was of no interest to the great king- for his queen was dead and he was in despair.
The throne room was empty. Emperor Shah Jahan did not display himself in finely embroidered robes at the royal window that day, nor did he sit with his concubines in the Jasmine pavilion enjoying the drama of an elephant fight in the river beds. He canceled all appointments and went directly into his rooms, where he locked the doors behind him for eight days. During this time he refused to take any food or wine, and the only sound that the ministers who gathered outside his apartments could discern was a low, continuos moan.
On the ninth day the doors opened, and to the surprise of everyone who had known the worldly ruler, Shah Jahan emerged speaking of the impermanence of life and of a desire to renounce his title and become a homeless fakir- this from the same man who, a few years earlier, had cut down four brothers to gain the throne. A strange physical transformation had also taken place: the emperor's back was now bent in a peculiar way and his hair, which had been raven black, had turned totally white. Whispers in the Hall of Public Audience hinted at something even stranger: was it an illusion, or had the emperor grown smaller since the queen's death?
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