| Popis: |
The Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore called it a “teardrop on the cheek of time”; world-traveler 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 unparalleled marital devotion, a monument to undying love.1 The aesthetic qualities of the tomb are popularly believed to furnish proof of its builder's intense feeling: what else but great Love could have inspired such great Beauty? In fact, this “explanation” of the tomb can be shown to be essentially a myth—a myth which ignores a great deal of evidence to the contrary, that Shah Jahan was less noble and romantically devoted than we thought, and that the Taj Mahal is not purely and simply a memorial to a beloved wife. A serious reassessment of this important monument is long overdue; and in the fol... |
