Architecture in Agra

The morning started at a brisk 6am and the Taj Mahal was our first stop for the day. Luckily, our hotel was about 45 seconds away from the entrance by car. The entrance gate was more crowded with tourists than Rishikesh. For the majority of our trip we had been the only foreigners around for miles, and now we were nine out of about 50 thousand. I had forgotten how much I dislike the feeling of being a “tourist.” Also, apparently, you can’t bring a notebook and pencil into the Taj grounds. So, while I was hoping this blog writing would come along with a nice sketch of the magnificent white marble clad tomb, it seems my innocent face was not enough to convince the security team. All jokes aside, I understand why they wouldn’t let writing implements through as I’ll discuss later with the Agra Fort. I also wouldn’t want my beautiful creation to be defiled by those who are probably just going to say they’ve been there.

It is no secret that the Taj Mahal is an incredible building, but it might be that it isn’t the most impressive thing about the grounds. The most impressive thing has to be the planning. Most of the techniques used on the Taj itself were used on other parts of the build site, from the layering of arches to turn a square into a dome, to the optical illusion of equality of size in the inlay Arabic writings by steadily increasing the size as you go further up. The build site was put right next to a bend in the river so that the slower moving water would erode the bank less quickly, and cause a cooler climate. The land itself was purchased in exchange for five large houses. The four gates are perfectly in line with the tomb inside the Taj. There are four gardens with a pool in the center which when combined is called the paradise garden. Its proximity to the river allowed for its main entrance, during its use, to actually be a river gate. A mosque was built on one side facing east so the other side had to be a guest house and the space could maintain the symmetry. 

The second place we visited was the Agra Fort. A large compound built with both barracks and a palace, so in short, a castle. It has all the bells and whistles a highly defensible position should have. A drawbridge, flared ramparts for arrows, spouts for water runoff and dropping hot oil on attackers, and last but not least, a ramp for flaming boulders to roll down, because of course you need one of those. Once you make it past those defenses you are met with some astoundingly intricate construction. The palace has more hallways and passages than I cared to count, each one has immense detail and there is even a view of the Taj from the back side of the palace. If you look closely at the walls and pillars of the palace, you will see what seem to be beautiful multi-colored paintings of flowers. In reality, they are semi-precious and precious gemstones inlaid on white marble. One design of a flower contained tiger’s eye, mossy agate, ruby, sapphire, and emerald. This style of inlay is a signature of the Mughal Empire. 

Another astounding thing was the amount of detail that was carved into seemingly unimportant places. Small pillars far below eye level and braces high above eye level, not to mention in one entrance there are four identical arches placed in line with each other so you can only really see the bottoms of the middle two, and yet, they are still fully detailed. While looking straight up to see that they were in fact fully detailed I realised that a bat family was making good use of the intricate but unseen grooves in the red sandstone. I’m glad that at least it’s being utilized by some creature since most humans passing through won’t ever notice.

All in all, the more touristy experience was less fulfilling to our interpersonal discovery, though I must say rather pleasing to the eye as well as the designer’s mind.-Mordecai Coleman

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Taj Mahal and Red Fort

While staying in Agra, we visited the Taj Mahal. Our guide told us about the history of the beautiful landmark. The Taj was completed in 1648 and currently stands at 240 ft tall and is made out of a base of bricks, with an outer layer of white marble. The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million rupees; today the estimated price would be around 879 billion US dollars.

The Taj Mahal was built as a tomb for Mumtaz Mahal by her husband, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān. She died while giving birth to her 14th child. Although she gave birth 14 times, only 7 of her children, 3 girls and 4 boys survived.  After his passing, the king’s remains were entombed at the Taj as well. 

The emperor and his wife met when they were only 15 years old, and it was supposedly love at first sight, and they got married 5 years later. Shah Jahān was imprisoned in the Agra Red Fort during the construction of the Taj Mahal. He was actually imprisoned by his own son and remained there for 8 years. From where he was held he could watch the Taj Mahal being built, even from about 2 miles away. The section where the king was imprisoned was made out of the same white marble material used on the Taj. -Chloe Smith