Symmetry...

Nothing can prepare you for it.  No photograph, no book, nothing.  Not even the monuments that lay claim to being the precursor to this.  None can prepare you for its majesty.  It is as if all others built before have been built, to iron out the imperfections, so that this could come to being.

Entering from the Western gate, the red sandstone, so familiar from other places rise up to approximately six meters.  The gate, a large wooden door shaped like an arch, split down the middle and hinged onto the pillars of sandstone that support an arch, above that pillars supporting white domes.  Entering the first court yard, the expansive gardens bordered by red sandstone walls that support buildings and are bisected by the East, West and Northern Gates, the paradoxical sense of intimacy and open spaces fills my heart.  To the South the main entrance, with its twenty two domes one for each year of construction.

Walking through the main entrance is like drawing a curtain before the main performance. At first the dome and centre is revealed and with each step more and more like a curtain being drawn, until at last all is revealed.  The building in all its splendour, symmetry so perfect it defies comprehension.  The marble shimmering as if the building was completed just yesterday.  Gardens, pristine, colours blending together and complementing the scene. This is the Taj Mahal, a dedication symbolising the love of a man for his wife, or so the legend goes.

But in fact Mutaaz Mahal, never saw the Taj.  Its construction started a year after she passed on. Now while most say that the Taj is a symbol of love, thats is partly true but the story does not end here.  Shah Jehan was influenced by a great Sufi, who influenced the design of the Taj.

It is said that the Shah was so passionate about symmetry, that the Taj represents heaven as described in the Holy Quraan.  In it God says, in paradise there are castles, the Taj, with gardens, the gardens that surround the Taj, beneath which rivers flow, the river that forms the northern boundary of the Taj.

It is rumoured that a Black Taj was suppose to be built but that the Shah was imprisoned by his sone in the Agra Fort with a window looking to his beloved tomb, but this speculation has been laid to rest, at least for me.  On the opposite side of the river, where the gardens of the Taj continue, a wall for a pool of water was recently discovered.  When archeologists, after covering the bottom with a plastic film to prevent leaking, filled the pool they noticed a most extraordinary sight.  Once the pool was filled, the water being murky and almost black reflected the Taj. Perfect symmetry and a black Taj to behold!  So this most genius of kings commissioned the most perfect of buildings in total symmetry, a perfection that defies all comprehension symbolising paradise where his beloved resides and in his own words of the Taj he says:

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.
                    Shah Jehaan

Of all the sights I have witnessed in my life, this counts as one of the most beautiful and what more fitting thing can a lover do but build a Taj in the heart of his love.... ;-)