Book Review of Giles Tillitson's Tajmahal published in 2008 by Penguin India. Review published in Decan Herald (Sunday Magazine) on 22.3.2009
Giles Tillitson, an India based art historian, has addressed Taj Mahal from various perspectives in a concise book encompassing historical and architectural backgrounds to the recent Taj corridor controversy.
As a monument Taj Mahal has appropriated diverse and competing meanings and symbolic representations; as a national symbol, an edifice to immortalise love and an architectural marvel. It is a part of our collective consciousness. Giles Tillitson, an India based art historian, has addressed Taj Mahal from various perspectives in a concise book encompassing historical and architectural backgrounds to the recent Taj corridor controversy.Tillotson systematically unravels the various layers of the meanings, concepts and metaphorical connotations of Taj Mahal; from its origin as a sepulchral architecture to a cultural icon in the modern India.The construction and design of Taj Mahal has remained a debatable subject, more for the reason that there are no historical records or designs. What we have is ‘Padshahnama’ of Abdul Hamid Lahauri that is an official chronicle of Shah Jahan and travel accounts of Westerners like Francois Bernier, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and Manucci. In Padshahnama, Taj Mahal is called rauza-i-munawwara (an illumined tomb in a garden) but it hardly talks about its construction. The writings of the contemporary travelers are ambivalent and disoriented because of their ethnocentrism. The same sense of cultural supremacy has biased the British historians and architects who were at a loss to believe that such a structure could have been built without a European association.
There are historians like Ram Nath and P N Oak who consider Taj Mahal as a Hindu architecture. It was only in 2006 that an authentic monograph on Taj Mahal was authored by Ebba Koch whom Tillotson profusely acknowledges. Tillotson asserts that as an architectural design, Taj is not an original conception, rather it is inspired by Timurid (Central Asian), Delhi Sultanate as well as pre-existing Mughal and old Hindu styles. All these styles were assimilated and synthesised to design the unique Taj Mahal. The book also denies lack of historical evidence to corroborate a popular belief that Shah Jahan wanted another Taj in Black marble beside the existing one. There have been controversies regarding the architect who designed Taj Mahal. Tillitson, on the basis of records, tries to put an end to it and cites Ustad Ahmad Lahauri (architect), Amanat Khan (calligrapher), Mir Abdul Karim and Makramat Khan (work supervisors). Since Ustad Ahmad Lahauri was sent to Delhi to design other buildings, the story of cutting hands of Ustad Isa, another name in the guesswork is false. The construction took 17 years and costed 50 lakhs.Tillotson also presents the diverse accounts of Taj Mahal, as seen from the eyes of European travelers, British officers, memsahibs, architects, art historians, Mughal court poets etc. He also analyses the British landscape painters like William Hodges, Daniell Brothers and other company painters including Indians who accentuated its picturesque quality by putting Taj in its landscape setting.In contemporary times, Taj Mahal still acquires different meanings; the ad of ‘Wah Taj!’, for tea of the same brand, Taj Mahal group of Hotels, a lonely Princess Diana standing in front of Taj Mahal, so on and so forth. We also have competing literary perceptions as Sahir Ludhiyanvi, a progressive Urdu poet, considered it as a mockery of the poor people whereas Shakeel Badayuni, in a popular film song said that by constructing Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan left a legacy of love for the world. This legacy enshrined in the mysteries of the marble goes on and on; acquiring new meanings and perceptions and that is truly the mystique of Taj Mahal!
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