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Located
near the Indian city of Agra along the river Yamuna,lies one of the world's greatest
architectural treasures.The Taj mahal need no introduction,framed with white marble,the supernatural beauty of the Taj Mahal
speaks with a voice of its own to visitors from all over the world of
feelings that are common to all humanity.The Taj Mahal, which is
considered one of the great wonders of the world, was built as the pee-eminent expression of a man's love for a wife. According to
people,other works or lets say what we learn from our text books that
it was built by Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan in commemoration of his
loving wife Mumtaz.It is to be said that it took nearly around 22 years for 20000
worker to complete this work of art.
It
was back in late 2013,I was reading a novel called Krishna Key by
Ashwin Sanghi,though quite interesting as a whole,But the most interesting part in the book is where the author reveals that
The Taj Mahal was an ancient Hindu Temple.Though it was purely a work of fiction,but some context were more or less enough to make one
believe it for true.After finishing the book and going by
curiosity,I tried googling about The Taj being a Hindu Temple and
to my suprise it was not a theory that was only limited to the
novel,There were few people who went by it and moreover had proof to
support it.One of them was Professor P.N. Oak, author of Taj
Mahal: The True Story, who believes that the whole
world has been duped. He claims that the Taj Mahal is not Queen
Mumtaz Mahal's tomb, but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva
(then known as Tejo Mahalaya), worshipped by the Rajputs of Agra
city.In the course of his research, Oak discovered that the Shiva
temple palace had been usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of
Jaipur, Jai Singh. Shah Jahan then remodelled the palace into his
wife's memorial. In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama,
Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in
Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz's burial. The ex-Maharaja of
Jaipur is said to retain in his secret collection two orders from
Shah Jahan for the surrender of the Taj building.
The use of
captured temples and mansions as a burial place for dead courtiers
and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers.
Oak's inquiries
begin with the name Taj Mahal. He says this term does not occur in
any Moghul court papers or chronicles, even after Shah Jahan's time.
The term 'Mahal' has never been used for a building in any of the
Muslim countries, from Afghanistan to Algeria.
'The usual
explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal is
illogical in at least two respects. Firstly, her name was never
Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani,' he writes. 'Secondly, one cannot
omit the first three letters from a woman's name to derive the
remainder as the name for the building.'
Taj Mahal is, he
claims, a corrupt version of Tejo-mahalaya, or the Shiva's Palace.
Oak also says that the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy
tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy
archaeologists. Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan's time
corroborates the love story.
Furthermore, Oak
cites several documents suggesting that the Taj Mahal predates Shah
Jahan's era:
- Professor Marvin Miller of New York took samples from the
riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the
door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.
- European traveller Johan Albert Mandelslo, who visited Agra
in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz's death), describes the life
of the city in his memoirs, but makes no reference to the Taj Mahal
being built.
- The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra
within a year of Mumtaz's death, also suggest that the Taj was a
noteworthy building long well before Shah Jahan's time.
Oak also points out a number of design and architectural
inconsistencies that support the belief that the Taj Mahal is a
typical Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum.
Many rooms in the Taj Mahal have remained sealed since Shah
Jahan's time, and are still inaccessible to the public. Oak asserts
they contain a headless statue of Shiva and other objects commonly
used for worship rituals in Hindu temples.
Fearing political backlash, Indira Gandhi's government tried to
have Oak's book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the
Indian publisher of the first edition with dire consequences.
Stephen knapp also a strong propagator
of these theory takes us more deep into it with his video
A
lot more videos and articles covering it can be found online
easily and the
only way to validate this theory as wrong or right is by opening
the doors of the several sealed rooms inside the Taj Mahal.
Keeping
all the controveries aside,lastly I want to add that be it a
mausoleum or a temple,the Taj Mahal has left people enthralled all over the world with
its unique identification and has made every
Indian including me proud to have it on our soil.
Courtsey:The
controversey surrounding the origins of Taj
Mahal(bbc.co.uk),Youtube,Wikipedia,
Krishna
key-Ashwin Sanghi.
