A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time Read online

  About the Book

  In 1631, the heartbroken Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, ordered the construction of a monument of unsurpassed splendour and majesty in memory of his beloved wife. Theirs was an extraordinary story of passionate love: although almost constantly pregnant – she bore him fourteen children – Mumtaz Mahal followed her husband on every military campaign, in order that they might never be apart.

  But then Mumtaz died in childbirth. Blinded by grief, Shah Jahan created an exquisite and extravagant memorial for her on the banks of the river Jumna. A gleaming mausoleum of flawless symmetry, the Taj Mahal was built from milk-white marble and rose sandstone, and studded with a fortune in precious jewels. It took twenty years to complete and involved over 20,000 labourers, depleting the Moghul treasuries. But Shah Jahan was to pay a greater price for his obsession. He ended his days imprisoned by his own son in Agra Fort, gazing across the river at the monument to his love. The building of the Taj Mahal had set brother against brother and son against father in a savage conflict that pushed the seventeenth century’s most powerful empire into irreversible decline.

  The story behind the Taj Mahal has the cadences of Greek tragedy, the carnage of a Jacobean revenge play and the ripe emotion of grand opera. With the storytelling skills that characterize their previous books, in this compelling narrative history Diana and Michael Preston succeed in putting a revealing human face on the famous marble masterpiece.

  THE STORY OF THE TAJ MAHAL

  DIANA and MICHAEL PRESTON

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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  A TEARDROP ON THE CHEEK OF TIME

  A CORGI BOOK: 9780552154154

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Doubleday

  a division of Transworld Publishers

  Corgi edition published 2008

  Copyright © Diana and Michael Preston 2008

  Diana and Michael Preston have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.

  This book is a work of non-fiction.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acclaim for A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time

  About the Author

  Also by Diana and Michael Preston

  Acknowledgements

  Genealogy

  Map

  Prologue

  1 ‘A Place of Few Charms’

  2 Allah Akbar

  3 ‘Peerless Pearls and Heart-pleasing Stuffs’

  4 The Warrior Prince

  5 Emperor in Waiting

  6 Chosen One of the Palace

  7 The Peacock Throne

  8 ‘Build for Me a Mausoleum’

  9 ‘Dust of Anguish’

  10 ‘The Builder Could Not Have Been of This Earth’

  11 ‘This Paradise-like Garden’

  12 The Illumined Tomb

  13 ‘The Sublime Throne’

  14 ‘Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth’

  15 Fall of the Peacock Throne

  16 ‘His Own Tomb on the Other Side of the River’

  Postscript

  Bibliography

  Notes and Sources

  Illustration Credits

  For friends and family

  Acclaim for A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time:

  ‘The Prestons’ delightful and definitive book tells the monument’s full, extraordinary story, not only of the vast undertaking of the building itself, but also the operatic sweep of the dynastic and romantic convulsions behind the project … Combines tremendous scholarship with a host of cracking stories well told’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Although Diana and Michael Preston’s book is centred on the Taj, it is largely taken up with an enthralling history of extraordinary kings and their peerlessly cultured and opulent lives … truly unforgettable’ Daily Mail

  ‘Considerable research leavened by colourful story-telling … every page offers a vivid image or telling detail that captures the deeply weird and violent world of the Moghuls. We're given internecine rivalry; the paranoia, poisonings, tortures and killings; the flaying, blinding, knifing, the general destruction of life but, above all, the luxury’ Spectator

  ‘The Prestons tell the story engagingly and well, providing a lucid narrative sweep that extends from the arrival of the first Mughal invaders to the manner in which Lord Curzon’s obsessive determination to preserve India’s past ensured the restoration of the Taj’Charles Allen, Literary Review

  ‘A highly readable potted history of the Moghul empire that produced this extraordinary building … thoroughly enjoyable’Financial Times

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Diana Preston’s most recent books are Wilful Murder: The Sinking of the Lusitania (now also a major BBC1 drama documentary), A Pirate of Exquisite Mind and Before the Fall-out (selected for the Samuel Johnson Prize longlist and winner of the Los Angeles Times Science and Technology Prize). Her new book, Cleopatra and Anthony, will shortly be published by Doubleday. Her co-author is her husband Michael Preston, an historian and traveller.

  Also by Diana and Michael Preston

  A PIRATE OF EXQUISITE MIND: The Life of William Dampier

  by Diana Preston

  THE ROAD TO CULLODEN MOOR:

  Bonnie Prince Charlie and the ’45 Rebellion

  A FIRST RATE TRAGEDY: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Expeditions

  BESIEGED IN PEKING: The Story of the 1900 Boxer Rising

  WILFUL MURDER: The Sinking of the Lusitania

  BEFORE THE FALL-OUT: The Human Chain

  Reaction from Marie Curie to Hiroshima

  Acknowledgements

  We could not have written this book without spending considerable time in India – a country that, despite the many times we have travelled there, still overwhelms our senses. In New Delhi Professor R. C. Agrawal, Joint Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, gave generously to us of his own time and facilitated our visits to the Taj Mahal and other sites associated with the story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. In Agra we were very grateful for the expert advice of Superintending Archaeologist Dr D. Dayalan and of his deputy Mr A. K. Tiwari and to Dr R. K. Dixit, who, in his atmospheric office perched in the southern gatehouse to the Taj, briefed us on recent excavations and fut
ure plans. He also led us extensively around the Taj complex and the excavations of the waterworks, helping us see things both figuratively and physically in a new light. Dr K. K. Muhammed, Superintending Archaeologist of the ASI in Bhopal, made possible our visit to the palace fortress of Burhanpur, where Mumtaz Mahal died, and the lonely site where she was temporarily laid to rest. We are also grateful to many others whom we met in India, especially Lucy Peck for her knowledge of the Moghul monuments of Delhi, Vibhuti Sachdev for insights into Hindu architectural principles and Dr Giles Tillotson for advice on Moghul architecture.

  The many Moghul chronicles were key to our understanding of this story. We must especially thank the staff of the Indian Institute of the Bodleian Library and those of the British Library, the London Library and the School of Oriental and African Studies for helping us access the sources of the period. We are equally indebted to many individuals. In the USA, Julia Bailey, editor of Muqarnas, advised us on architectural sources. In the UK, Philippa Vaughan guided us to material on the depiction of women in Moghul paintings.

  Our research in India entailed travelling long distances to sometimes inaccessible places. Mehera Dalton and Tanya Dalton of Greaves Travel International (UK and USA) expertly organized our itinerary and in New Delhi Mala Tandan of Greaves gave us invaluable support. We are also very grateful to the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi and to Prince Richard Holkar of the Ahilya Fort, Maheshwar, for their generous hospitality. Explore Limited gave us the chance in Uzbekistan to compare the tombs and palaces of the Moghuls’ aesthetic ancestors and in Iran to trace the Persian influences discernible in the Taj Mahal.

  The advice – and criticism – of friends was invaluable. In particular we are grateful to Robin and Justina Binks, Robert Binyon, Charlie Covell, Kim and Sharon Lewison and Neil Munro. We must also thank our family for their encouragement, especially Lily Bardi-Ullmann for her research in the New York Public Library and our parents Leslie and Mary Preston and Vera Faith.

  We have much appreciated the help and advice of our publishers. At Doubleday in London we are grateful to Marianne Velmans, our editor Michèle Hutchison, and also Sheila Lee and Deborah Adams. In New York, we are grateful to George Gibson and his team, including Michele Amundsen and Peter Miller, of Walker Books. In Delhi, Vivek Ahuja of Random House India gave us hospitality and encouragement and fresh insights. Finally, we thank our agents Bill Hamilton of A. M. Heath in London and Michael Carlisle of Inkwell Management in New York for their enthusiasm and support throughout.

  Genealogy

  THE GREAT MOGHULS 1526–1707

  r.—reigned

  =—married

  * The seven of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz’s children who survived into adulthood

  NOTES: All the emperors had several wives

  Humayun’s mother was Ma’suma

  Akbar’s mother was Hamida

  Jahangir’s mother was a princess of Amber unnamed by chronicler Abul Fazl

  Shah Jahan’s mother was Jodh Bai

  Prologue

  In a dusty fortress on the hot, airless plateau of the Deccan in central India an army commander sat playing chess with his beautiful, bejewelled and heavily pregnant wife. The year was 1631 – under the Muslim calendar, 1040 – and both were Muslims. Suddenly, as the popular version of the story goes, a severe pain gripped the woman’s abdomen. Doctors were hastily summoned but despite their efforts this, the thirty-eight-year-old mother’s fourteenth pregnancy, was going severely wrong. Weak through loss of blood, she whispered to her distraught husband of their everlasting love and begged him not to marry again. Her final request was that he should build her a mausoleum resembling paradise on earth, just as she had seen in her dreams.

  The authoritative court chroniclers record her death just a few minutes later after giving birth to a daughter:

  When she brought out the last single pearl

  She emptied her body like an oyster.

  They continue that for two years her husband, that same commander, the Moghul Emperor Shah Jahan, hid himself away, spurning worldly pleasures and exchanging sparkling gems and rich clothes for simple mourning garments of pure white. In the words of one of his court poets, ‘his eyes wept pearl drops of sadness’. His hair turned white overnight. He devoted his energies to fulfilling the dream of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, ‘Chosen One of the Palace’, creating a tomb that was not only a representation of heaven on earth but a symbol of sensuality and luxury even in death. Built on a bend in the River Jumna at Agra, Shah Jahan’s capital, in northwestern India, we know it as the Taj Mahal, the world’s most famous memorial to love.

  The Taj Mahal’s architect is not known for certain but this much-debated figure produced a design of flawless symmetry and exquisite elegance, a synthesis of Muslim and Hindu styles executed in rose sandstone and milk-white marble. Despite its massive size – the main dome rises over 240 feet and throws a load of over 12,000 tons on its supports – the Taj Mahal seems to float almost weightless above its surrounding courtyards, mirror-like water courses and vivid green gardens. Its mythic fragile beauty rarely fails to captivate even the most cynical.

  Contemporaries immediately recognized the Taj as a marvel of the age. A seventeenth-century French traveller decided that this building ‘deserves much more to be numbered among the wonders of the world than the pyramids of Egypt’. A Moghul scholar wrote that: ‘The eye of the sun overflows with tears from looking at it; its shadow is like moonlight to the earth.’

  Later generations struggled to express the emotions the Taj’s ethereal, melancholic beauty inspired in them. To the Nobel Prize-winning poet Sir Rabindranath Tagore the Taj was ‘a teardrop on the cheek of time’. To Rudyard Kipling it was ‘the ivory gate through which all good dreams come; the realization of the gleaming halls of dawn that Tennyson sings of … the embodiment of all things pure, all things holy, and all things unhappy’. Edward Lear decided that ‘Descriptions of this wonderfully lovely place are simply silly as no words can describe it at all. Henceforth let the inhabitants of the world be divided into two classes – them as has seen the Taj Mahal and them as hasn’t.’ Fittingly, it was a woman, the wife of an early nineteenth-century British army officer, who best captured the sublime intensity of the love that inspired the building. She wrote simply to her husband, ‘I cannot tell you what I think for I know not how to criticize such a building, but I can tell you what I feel. I would die tomorrow to have such another over me.’

  By the end of the eighteenth century the British artist Thomas Daniell, who produced some fine early paintings and plans of the Taj Mahal, could write after his visit: ‘The Taj Mahal has always been considered … a spectacle of the highest celebrity … visited by persons of all rank and from all parts.’ The Taj’s celebrity has only grown over succeeding centuries. It is now an international icon and, like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Great Wall of China and the Sydney Opera House, one of the world’s most readily identifiable structures. Despite being built by an occupying dynasty, it is a symbol of India adopted by numerous tourist organizations, restaurant owners and manufacturers in India and worldwide. It has also become a symbol of enduring love. By the time of Princess Diana’s visit to India with her then husband Prince Charles in February 1992, the power of the Taj Mahal’s image was such that when she visited the Taj alone and allowed herself to be photographed – a single, disconsolate and melancholy figure seated on a white marble bench before a monument to an abiding royal romance – no words were needed.

  The Taj Mahal is not only an expression of supreme love but also of confident power and opulent majesty. It was the creation of an emperor whose dominions stretched westwards across the Indus into present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, eastwards to Bengal and southwards to the central Indian plateau of the Deccan. Shah Jahan’s ancestors, the four preceding emperors, had acquired these huge – and hugely wealthy – lands by persistent opportunism. They had been pushed out of their traditional territories beyon
d the mountains of the Hindu Kush by fierce rivalries among the rulers of the local clans. Under the leadership of Babur, the first Moghul emperor, they had begun probing down through the Khyber Pass into Hindustan – northern India. Their hold on their territorial gains had at first been precarious. Not until the reign of Babur’s grandson – Shah Jahan’s grandfather Akbar from 1556 to 1605 – was the Moghuls’ grip on India secure.

  With stability and prosperity came the opportunity for the Moghuls to indulge their traditional aesthetic interests. Nostalgic for the cooler climes they had left behind them, they had a particular love for exquisite gardens, watered by fountains and streams and with airy pavilions in which to relax. They were the prototype for the gardens of the Taj Mahal and several survive to this day. The emperors also became enthusiastic builders, constructing in their new lands fortresses and palaces and within their pleasure gardens their own beautiful mausolea. They brought with them a tradition of tomb building which they developed over the years into a unique fusion of the Islamic and indigenous traditions. The fabulous wealth of India, piled high in the imperial Moghul treasuries, enabled them to build mausolea of extraordinary magnificence and sophistication. Shah Jahan could literally stud the Taj Mahal with jewels, inlaid into the building’s white marble to form the glowing flowers of an earthly representation of the heavenly paradise where Mumtaz awaited her grieving husband.

  The Taj Mahal was the Moghul Empire’s ultimate artistic expression – emulated but never equalled. However, it extracted a high price from its builder, Shah Jahan, in every sense. Creating this ‘heaven on earth’ was an almost impossible undertaking, physically and financially. A contemporary English traveller wrote, ‘the building goes on with excessive labour and cost … Gold and silver esteemed common metal and marble but an ordinary stone.’ The Taj’s construction and the emotional impact of Mumtaz Mahal’s death depleted Shah Jahan’s treasuries and distracted him from the business of government. It also fuelled the tensions within a now motherless imperial family, inserted the seed of Shah Jahan’s own downfall and helped precipitate what was then the world’s most powerful empire into religious fundamentalism and decline.