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How all the fountains at Taj got their water from Yamuna!

Upendra SwamiJune 11, 2020 6432 Views3

So like me, many of you would have visited Agra and Taj Mahal a number of times, may be. And, each time you would have been so engrossed in admiring the beauty of the marble marvel that you might have easily ignored all the other details of this huge Taj complex, such as its beautiful fountains. Quite unjustified, isn’t it!  Gardens, fountains and the channels add to the glory of Taj Mahal Although nothing can undermine the beauty of the white mausoleum built in memory of Mumtaz Mahal, but you can’t deny that surrounding gardens and the fountains add to the glory of whole structure. That is the reason, why Taj Mahal is also a ‘rauza’ as per Persian principles- a tomb with a ‘charbagh’ (four cornered squared gardens), fountains and channels. So were the many other tombs of the M...

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IndiaPhotogallery

Lockdown reads: Walking down the Agra’s necropolis, in the shadow of the Taj

Upendra SwamiApril 5, 2020 2118 Views0

Walking around Taj Mahal is like roaming within different layers of Mughal history. Once you start peeling off these layers, you get to know—one after the other—many lesser known facts and events of the period which was largely overshadowed by a single story of love. As one of the curators of our walk, Shradha Arora would say it as the ‘shadow of the Taj’, a ‘necropolis’ where all dead lay buried, including the other queens of Shahjahan, all of whom have largely been forgotten. We all know about Mumtaz Mahal and the story of Taj Mahal. In an earlier post we also talked about the first wife of Emperor Shahjahan. Kandahari Begum, as she was know, has her tomb at Sandali Masjid complex on the other side of the Taj Mahal complex, but not the part of it. We are now going to talk about other...

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India

Where a Shah Jahan’s queen lies in solitude on the other side of Taj

Upendra SwamiMarch 13, 2020 5600 Views8

At a very remote corner just outside the boundary of Taj Mahal complex towards its Eastern gate, when you climb the narrow stairs of Sandali Masjid you get an eerie feeling. With monkeys and dogs around, what attracts you more is the presence of a big number of cats, many of them black. Sandali Masjid is also called as Kali Masjid. Mosque is at the one side of the complex, with its back towards the Taj complex across the road. While right in front of the mosque, in the middle of a garden is an octagonal tomb. Its onion shaped dome in white marble signifies that it belongs to someone from the royal family. We are told that it belongs to the first queen of the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan- Kandahari Begum. Platform of Kandahari Begum's tomb You will hardly find any tourists here. F...

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