I remember my visit to Taj Mahal Agra. It is a place, where you find a soft sign of love, affection and great works. It is being counted in the seven wonders of the world. A traveler always likes to visit a place that gives peaceful satisfaction to his mind and Taj Mahal is one of them. In every brick, there is story of love and only love. As in other way, it represents itself as a guide for every human and teaches how to love your partner. It is a great heritage for Indian Culture.
When I visited Taj Mahal, I hired Mr.Amar Singh as my guide. He was a very polite guy with lots and lots of knowledge about Indian and Taj Mahal history. He told me about each and every minute details about Taj. He even recited many poems on Taj in Urdu. I am writing below some facts about Taj Mahal which I noted down from my guide.
It is being said that the great Mughal Emperor ‘Shahjahan’ made it in the memory of his wife ‘Mumtaz mahal.’ He loved her very much. Shahjahan could never forget his wife after her death and he decided to build a monument in the remembrance of his beloved wife.
The Taj Mahal was built entirely of white marble. The Taj Mahal was constructed using materials from all over India and Asia. Over 1,000 elephants were used to transport building materials during the construction. The white marble was taken from Rajasthan, the jasper from Punjab and the jade and crystal from China. The turquoise was from Tibet and Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, while sapphire came from Sri Lanka and the cornelian from Arabia. In all, 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones were inlaid into the marble. The cost of construction was about 40 million Rupees, at a time when 1 gram of gold sold for 1.3 Rupees. It took about 22 years to get completed and over twenty thousand workmen and master craftsmen worked for it.
Shah Jehan deserves credit for turning the death of his wife into a symbol of lasting beauty. He gifted India and the world its most beautiful mausoleum. As English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, the Taj Mahal is “not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.”