Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downy, And since Valentine's
Speaker 1: Day is coming up, we decided we'd like to do
Speaker 1: a romantic type of episode, so we settled on the
Speaker 1: idea of the building of the taj Mahal, which has
Speaker 1: always been considered a great love story. But is it
Speaker 1: is our question to you, and we try to find
Speaker 1: that out today. So the taj Mahal was built by
Speaker 1: Shah Jahan and he was the seventeenth century Mughal Emperor
Speaker 1: and the Mughal Empire included most of South Asia. It's
Speaker 1: really huge holding. Um. He's the fifth ruler in his dynasty,
Speaker 1: which lasts about two hundred years and until the Persian
Speaker 1: invasion in seventeen thirty nine. And his title means Emperor
Speaker 1: of the World or King of the world, so he's
Speaker 1: a pretty big deal. I say he was born Prince
Speaker 1: Karan and was descended from Genghis Khan, tamer Lane and
Speaker 1: a Kabar the Great. His father was named Jonger. And
Speaker 1: we'd like to preface this by saying a lot of
Speaker 1: these words are a bit difficult for us to pronounce,
Speaker 1: so you're welcome to see our blog round up on Friday,
Speaker 1: um that blogs dot house, stuffworks dot com and see
Speaker 1: him all spelled out there so they'll actually make sense
Speaker 1: as opposed to when I mangle them. He was the
Speaker 1: favorite of his father's son's growing up, even though he
Speaker 1: wasn't the oldest. He commanded his father's army for many
Speaker 1: years and was very successful, and that's how he got
Speaker 1: the title of shah Jahan, which was pretty amazing for
Speaker 1: someone who wasn't even crowned to be called king of
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, definitely. But then his father gets sick
Speaker 1: and the sons begin to fight with each other because
Speaker 1: there's not this clear, definitive learne of succession, and he's
Speaker 1: got this real evil fairy tale like stepmother nor Johan,
Speaker 1: who her name means light of the world, and she
Speaker 1: switches her allegiances to a younger brother, um One, who
Speaker 1: she marries off to her daughter from another marriage, and
Speaker 1: she's planning on ruling herself, almost using him as a puppet.
Speaker 1: So shaw Johan rebelled and he led an army against
Speaker 1: his father and stepmother. It didn't work, but when his
Speaker 1: father died in the sixteen seven, shah Jahan came back
Speaker 1: to agra Um. His only older brother that was left
Speaker 1: had died of drink and he had his other rivals,
Speaker 1: like his younger brothers, executed, So there's a nice family
Speaker 1: story for you. He spared nor Johan but sent her
Speaker 1: to Lahore. But while nord Johan may have been an
Speaker 1: evil stepmother, she was also part of shah Jahan's love story.
Speaker 1: She definitely was, and that begins when shah Jahan is
Speaker 1: fifteen years old. He meets this beautiful girl, our jamand Banu,
Speaker 1: and its love at first sight for both of them.
Speaker 1: The marriage isn't arranged until five years later, but it's
Speaker 1: actually set up by evil stepmother nor Johan, who is
Speaker 1: a relative of the girls. And she was given the
Speaker 1: name muntazma Hall which means althood of the Palace. And
Speaker 1: she was only one of his wives who did have
Speaker 1: a few, but she was his favorite. She came with
Speaker 1: him and all of his military campaigns. They were completely
Speaker 1: devoted to one another and had several children together. Sadly,
Speaker 1: in their nineteenth year of marriage, muntaz Mahal comes with
Speaker 1: her husband on yet another campaign and She's in her
Speaker 1: ninth month of pregnancy at the time she dies from
Speaker 1: complications of childbirth, having their fourteen child fourteen kids in
Speaker 1: nineteen years. Seven of their kids lived to adulthood, and
Speaker 1: this baby is one of them. So after she died,
Speaker 1: according to legend, Shah Jahan's beard turned gray and he
Speaker 1: never again took pleasure in anything in life. But another
Speaker 1: part of the story goes that when she was dying,
Speaker 1: mumtaz Mahal asked for the most beautiful mausoleum that had
Speaker 1: ever been built, and Shah Jahan complied and gave us
Speaker 1: the tash Mahal. So I'm sure everybody's seen a picture
Speaker 1: of the brilliant taj Mahal, but it's located in Agra
Speaker 1: in Attar Pradesh, and our words can't do it justice.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you haven't seen a picture, go find
Speaker 1: phone immediately, and what you've probably seen is the mausoleum itself,
Speaker 1: the giant white marble building that's topped by a dome
Speaker 1: with four minarets around it, and it really is gorgeous.
Speaker 1: It seems to change colors during the day. It reflects
Speaker 1: different shades depending on the sun and the moon and
Speaker 1: the ornamental pool in front of it reflects the mall.
Speaker 1: But there's also a mosque and it's jowob which mirrors
Speaker 1: the mosque. They're made of this reddish sandstone and there's
Speaker 1: a garden in a gateway, and I like this detail
Speaker 1: about the minarets. They're angled slightly outward so that in
Speaker 1: case of an earthquake they won't fall in and crush
Speaker 1: the tomb. So clever architecture there, and it's a mix
Speaker 1: of Indian, Persian and Islamic architectural styles. Constructions started in
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty two, but it took twenty two years for
Speaker 1: twenty thousand laborers to finish it, and including architects, calligraphers
Speaker 1: and stone cutters from all over They bring in the
Speaker 1: marble from a hundred miles away and semi precious and
Speaker 1: precious stones mind from all around the region. And one
Speaker 1: signature of the taj Mahal is the pietra dura and
Speaker 1: uh you make what looks like a painting from colored
Speaker 1: stones inlaid in another material and they're all these amazing stones.
Speaker 1: Je lapis amethyst and for the taj Mahal, you'll see
Speaker 1: it lots of geometric designs and also flowers done in
Speaker 1: the style. There's also a lot of lapidary, which is
Speaker 1: when you carve or cut designs out of the actual stones.
Speaker 1: Um lots of flowers carved out of marble, irises, daffodils, lilies, poppies, tulips.
Speaker 1: It's really beautiful. And they're also versus from the Quran
Speaker 1: on columns and calligraphy in this black onyx script, and
Speaker 1: another testament to the craftsmanship here the letters actually increase
Speaker 1: with height so that they look uniform when you're standing
Speaker 1: below them. The court poets wrote some beautiful stuff about
Speaker 1: the taj Mahal, but one verse that I liked was
Speaker 1: they set stone flowers in the marble that, by their color,
Speaker 1: if not their perfume, surpass real flowers, And if you
Speaker 1: see the pictures, they really do. Part of the legend
Speaker 1: of this whole building of the taj Mahal is that
Speaker 1: Shah Jahan had the craftsman's hands chopped off so that
Speaker 1: they'd never be able to make anything like this ever again.
Speaker 1: But considering that, another part of the story is that
Speaker 1: he'd supposedly planned to build a matching taj Jahan for
Speaker 1: himself across the Yun muna river that would be connected
Speaker 1: by a bridge to the taj Mahal. That's not true, yeah,
Speaker 1: because that wouldn't make any sense. No, you wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to kill all your highly skilled craftsmen before you got
Speaker 1: your own mausoleum on the ground. And you'd better believe
Speaker 1: that it was incredibly expensive to make anything this lavish
Speaker 1: and gorgeous. As much money as he had, and it
Speaker 1: said that Shah Jahan may have had the best jewel
Speaker 1: collection that ever existed, it wasn't quite enough. Shah Jahan
Speaker 1: at the same time was carrying on a lot of
Speaker 1: very expensive wars, and he was constructing a new capital,
Speaker 1: shah Jehanabad, which is now Deli, and he has to
Speaker 1: raise taxes to pay for it consequently, which nobody ever
Speaker 1: likes that. And on top of it all, he has
Speaker 1: to deal with his son ron Zeb, who it must
Speaker 1: run in the family is rebelling against his father. In
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty eight, Shah Jahan's rule is over. His son
Speaker 1: has won this battle and beheaded his brothers, and he
Speaker 1: sent his father to prison in the Red Fort in
Speaker 1: Agra and so much poetically. From there, Shah Jahan could
Speaker 1: see the Taj Mahal. He was buried with Moontaz Mahal,
Speaker 1: and you can tell that he didn't plan to be
Speaker 1: there because this part doesn't look like anything else. And
Speaker 1: some people think he was honoring his father by putting
Speaker 1: him in this amazing mausoleum, but other folks think that
Speaker 1: he was actually spiting his father because symmetry is reserved
Speaker 1: for God Islam, and so it might have bothered his
Speaker 1: son that the taj Mahal was just so perfect, everything
Speaker 1: is so symmetrical, and he tries to mess him up
Speaker 1: by putting the two men and throwing everything off. It's
Speaker 1: the only asymmetrical element in there. If you were really O. C. D.
Speaker 1: It would probably drive you crazy looking at this tomb chamber.
Speaker 1: We're fortunate that the taj Mahal became a UNESCO World
Speaker 1: Heritage Site in nineteen eighty three, because for a while
Speaker 1: there it didn't look so great. No, by the mid
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, the taj Mahal was abandoned and in this
Speaker 1: terrible state of disrepair, and some of the British collennialists
Speaker 1: were actually looting stuff from the from the taj Mahal,
Speaker 1: the precious stones, the semi precious stones, there's potentially a
Speaker 1: myth that the first Governor General, British Governor General of
Speaker 1: India actually planned to dismantle the taj and sell off
Speaker 1: the marble, which would be terrible. Can people do that
Speaker 1: with the Colosseum and well the Pyramids. All the limestone
Speaker 1: has been plundered except the very tip. But eventually it
Speaker 1: becomes a pleasure resort for the British and Lord Craizone
Speaker 1: is especially notable for helping preserve it and launching a
Speaker 1: major conservation effort. And by the mid nineteen nineties that
Speaker 1: we're having problems with, you know, the environmental effects of
Speaker 1: the air on the stone, and so the Indian government
Speaker 1: launched this multimillion dollar restoration effort which is still going
Speaker 1: on to scrub the exterior, restore the red sandstone main gates,
Speaker 1: and replace the semi precious inlays Um. In the long term,
Speaker 1: they might even try to recreate the original gardens. Patash
Speaker 1: Ma Hall gets two point two million visitors a year,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are honeymooners. Princess Diana and
Speaker 1: Prince Charles were supposed to celebrate their tenure anniversary there,
Speaker 1: but she ended up going by herself and you know,
Speaker 1: sitting on this bench that now people love to pose by.
Speaker 1: So that brings us back to our question. Is the
Speaker 1: taj Mahal a monument to love? And opinions on this
Speaker 1: are a little mixed. According to an article I read
Speaker 1: by Shane Tasker, Gandhi thought it was a monument to
Speaker 1: oppression vs. N. Paul said it was building without a function.
Speaker 1: And there's one historical revisionist P. N. Oak who's tried
Speaker 1: to say that the taj Mahal was built by a
Speaker 1: Hindu king and not by Shah Jahan, who was a Muslim,
Speaker 1: And he says it was a Hindu temple to Shiva.
Speaker 1: But we're going to go ahead and say that's a
Speaker 1: crackpot theory. Yeah. All this Huxley even he did not
Speaker 1: think much of the taj Mahal at all. He said
Speaker 1: that Marble I perceived covers a multitude of sins. So
Speaker 1: it's a real cut down for this temple, I'd say.
Speaker 1: But we're going to go with a quote we keep
Speaker 1: finding in our research from a poet Rabindra Nath take
Speaker 1: Or who said, let the splendor of the diamond, pearl
Speaker 1: and ruby vanish like the magic shimmer of the rainbow.
Speaker 1: Only let this one tear drop. The taj Mahal glistened
Speaker 1: spotlessly bright on the cheek of time. So I think
Speaker 1: Katie and I are putting our votes in the camp
Speaker 1: that the taj Mahal is a symbol of love. We're
Speaker 1: in the love story camp, yes, And that brings us
Speaker 1: to listener mail. Our first email is from Tori and Tori,
Speaker 1: I hope that I'm pronouncing your name right, but she wrote,
Speaker 1: I'm a podcast subscriber on iTunes and I have to
Speaker 1: thank you for the podcast about the Opium Wars. I'm
Speaker 1: a college student. In my final in East Asian History
Speaker 1: included an essay about the Opium Wars. Your descriptions matched
Speaker 1: our notes so closely that I was able to listen
Speaker 1: a few times and write my essay thoroughly. I received
Speaker 1: the best grade in the class thanks to you. You
Speaker 1: have a listener for life. So this is obviously an
Speaker 1: awesome email and we're glad that we were success able
Speaker 1: to help you out. And we got another email from
Speaker 1: Dave in St. Louis about Traveler and Little Sorrel from
Speaker 1: our podcast on History's Greatest of battle Horses, and he says,
Speaker 1: just in case fellow listeners wanted to pay their respects
Speaker 1: to both of these famous Confederate mounts, it can be
Speaker 1: done in one trip. It turns out that in order
Speaker 1: to get to v M I, you have to pass
Speaker 1: through Washington and Lees Campus, he said. In fact, you
Speaker 1: even passed right by Lee Chapel. So even in death,
Speaker 1: little Sorel is not more than a short mile away
Speaker 1: from Traveler. So thanks to Dave for that one, and
Speaker 1: going back to our Valentine's Day theme. If you would
Speaker 1: like to read more about how love works, go to
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