The Myth of the Taj Mahal and a New Theory of Its Symbolic Meaning

Abstract

The Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore called it a "teardrop on the cheek of time"; worldtraveler Eleanor Roosevelt felt that its white marble "symbolizes the purity of real love."Both writers shared the rather widespread romantic notion that the Taj Mahal (Fig. 1), the vast mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) for his wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631), is a noble embodiment of * This article is essentially the documented text of a lecture, presented at various museums and universities over the past two years, that summarizes material to be dealt with at greater length in a forthcoming monograph on the symbolism of the Taj Mahal and its inscriptional program.The major portion of the research was accomplished during 1975-76, as part of a larger study of Mughal architecture during the reign of Shah Jahan, under a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.The nucleus of the interpretation presented here was contained in a paper entitled "The Taj Mahal as a Symbolic Replica of the Throne of God," which I read at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the College Art Association of America, Washington, D.C. (January, 1975).The list of institutions and individuals who have facilitated my research is too lengthy to be included on this occasion, but I am especially grateful to Professor Richard Ettinghausen and numerous other distinguished specialists in Islamic art

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