50 Fun Facts About Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal stands on the bank of which river?

The Yamuna side of the complex was left without a wall, and the gardens were once watered from the river through an aqueduct and earthenware pipes.

Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, was the grandson of which Mughal emperor?

Akbar doted on the boy, chose his name, Khurram, and had him raised in Akbar's own household instead of his father's.

Which poet likened the Taj Mahal to a teardrop on the cheek of time?

Tagore became Asia's first Nobel laureate in 1913, when the prize honoured translated poems from his collection Gitanjali.

Mumtaz Mahal died accompanying Shah Jahan on what?

A military campaign in the Deccan took her to Burhanpur, where she died bearing their 14th child; she had followed his army on earlier campaigns despite frequent pregnancies.

What does the name Taj Mahal mean?

Crown of the Palace is the literal meaning of the words, though one theory says 'Taj' began as a shortened form of the name Mumtaz.

What did the Taj Mahal's builders use for scaffolding?

Brick scaffolding, a colossal structure that mirrored the tomb's inner and outer surfaces, replaced the lashed bamboo that builders normally used.

Roughly how many workers and artisans built the Taj Mahal complex?

About 20,000 workers took part, including specialists such as sculptors from Bukhara and calligraphers from Syria and Persia.

The architect often credited with the Taj Mahal is also credited with which Delhi landmark?

The Red Fort, whose design is credited to the same architect, was Shah Jahan's palace-fortress for his new capital at Delhi and was completed in 1648, like the Taj Mahal's mausoleum.

Where did the Taj Mahal's white marble come from?

Makrana in Rajasthan still has hundreds of marble mines, and its white marble also built Kolkata's Victoria Memorial.

What did the Taj Mahal's builders construct to haul materials to the site?

A ramp of tamped earth was built to move marble and materials to the site, with teams of oxen hauling the blocks on specially built wagons.

Some 1,000 of which animals hauled the Taj Mahal's materials?

Elephants, over a thousand of them, moved materials brought from all over India and Asia, including turquoise from Tibet and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.

Why were the Taj Mahal's minarets built leaning slightly outward?

So a collapse would miss the tomb: each of the four minarets, more than 40 metres tall, was set slightly outward so falling material would drop clear.

The Taj Mahal's great marble dome is often named after which vegetable because of its shape?

Onion-shaped domes also crown the four small kiosks at the main dome's corners, and the tops of the domes are decorated with a lotus design.

What was the Taj Mahal's main finial originally made of, before its replacement in the early 19th century?

Gold was the original material; the copy that replaced it is gilded bronze, topped by a moon whose horns point heavenward.

What is the Taj Mahal's technique of inlaying cut semi-precious stones into marble called?

Pietra dura reached its full maturity in Florence, and in the Indian subcontinent the same inlay art is known as parchin kari.

The calligraphy inlaid around the Taj Mahal's arches quotes passages from which holy book?

The Qur'an passages chosen for the Taj Mahal dwell on themes of judgement, and the calligrapher signed himself 'the insignificant being, Amanat Khan Shirazi'.

How did the Taj Mahal's calligraphers treat inscriptions placed higher up the walls?

Wrote them in larger script: the lettering grows with height to counter skewing when viewed from below, so the inscriptions look a uniform size from the ground.

Where are Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan buried?

In a lower chamber beneath the false cenotaphs lie the real graves, kept relatively plain because Muslim tradition forbids elaborate decoration on graves.

What breaks the Taj Mahal's symmetry?

Shah Jahan's cenotaph, placed to the west of centre beside Mumtaz's, was an afterthought, added when his son had him buried there.

Inside the Taj Mahal's crypt, which way are the faces of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan turned?

West, towards Mecca, is where both faces turn: the bodies lie on their sides with their heads to the north.

What is the name for the four-part Mughal garden layout used at the Taj Mahal?

Charbagh means 'four gardens', and the layout was meant to evoke the four rivers of Paradise described in Islamic tradition.

Which Samarkand tomb of the Mughals' ancestor Timur was an inspiration for the Taj Mahal?

Gur-e Amir, Timur's tomb in Samarkand, set a pattern for the grand royal tombs that his Mughal descendants later built in India.

Which garden, directly across the river from the Taj Mahal, has a large pond that reflects the tomb?

Mehtab Bagh suggests the river itself was meant to be seen as one of the rivers of Paradise running through the garden design.

What was Shah Jahan's fate in 1658?

Deposed by his son Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan was held at Agra Fort until his death in 1666, and was then buried beside Mumtaz Mahal.

A myth says Shah Jahan planned what across the river from the Taj Mahal?

A twin tomb in black marble was a legend traced to traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier; 1990s excavations found the 'black' ruins across the river were discoloured white stones.

Which British viceroy ordered the restoration of the Taj Mahal that was completed in 1908?

Lord Curzon's restoration also remodelled the gardens with the British-style lawns that are still in place today.

Why was scaffolding erected around the Taj Mahal in 1942?

To disguise it from Japanese air attack, the government hid the building under scaffolding, a ruse repeated during the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan.

What has turned the Taj Mahal's marble yellow-brown since the late 20th century?

Environmental pollution, including acid rain linked to the Mathura Oil Refinery, led India's Supreme Court to set up the Taj Trapezium Zone with strict emissions rules.

Which traditional treatment has been applied to the Taj Mahal to draw stains out of its marble?

Mud packs are left on the marble to absorb grime; fuller's earth clay, which lifts dirt and stains from marble, has been used to clean the Taj Mahal many times.

When is the Taj Mahal open for night viewing?

Full-moon nights, plus the two nights either side, let small groups in for 30-minute visits, though night viewing pauses during Ramadan.

In 2007 the Taj Mahal was named one of what?

The New 7 Wonders of the World came from a 2007 public poll that let people vote repeatedly, and UNESCO publicly distanced itself from the contest.

On which day of the week is the Taj Mahal closed to sightseers?

Friday closure is the rule, and on other days foreign visitors pay about 22 times the entry fee charged to Indian citizens.

The floor of the Taj Mahal's red sandstone mosque is inlaid with the outlines of what?

Prayer rugs, 569 of them, are outlined on the mosque floor, while the mirror-image building opposite has a geometric floor instead.

What did Shah Jahan famously entrust to Mumtaz Mahal as a mark of his complete trust?

His imperial seal, which validated imperial decrees, went to Mumtaz, who also served as his close adviser on affairs of state.

How do tourists reach the Taj Mahal's gates from the car parks?

On foot or by electric bus: polluting vehicles are barred within 500 metres of the monument, so battery buses and golf carts run from the parking areas.

What does the regnal name Shah Jahan, taken by the Taj Mahal's builder, mean in Persian?

King of the World was the meaning, and his father gave the prince the title Shah Jahan Bahadur after his early victories as a commander.

What shape is the main inner chamber of the Taj Mahal's mausoleum?

An octagon with sides about 7.3 metres long, the chamber has two tiers of eight arched niches and can be entered from each face.

What are the perforated marble screens around the Taj Mahal's cenotaphs called?

Jalis of marble replaced an earlier precious-metal screen around the cenotaphs; the marble version took ten years to make yet cost under a tenth as much.

What are the small domed kiosks at the corners of the Taj Mahal's main dome called?

Chattris also crown the tops of the four minarets, repeating the design of the main dome.

What is the name for the tall vaulted archways framing each side of the Taj Mahal's mausoleum?

Pishtaqs, each 33 metres high, frame the arched doorways called iwans, with two arched balconies stacked on either side.

What reportedly happened to Shah Jahan's hair as he mourned Mumtaz Mahal?

It turned white, court accounts say, and he also gave up listening to music and wearing lavish clothes for two years.

Which Mughal monument in Delhi inspired the Taj Mahal's garden and plan?

Humayun's Tomb, built for the emperor by his widow some 60 years before the Taj Mahal, was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent.

What did the Taj Mahal's first ceremony, in 1643, mark?

The 12th anniversary of Mumtaz Mahal's death was marked while the tomb was still unfinished; the mausoleum itself was not completed until 1648.

In 2000, India's Supreme Court dismissed a petition claiming the Taj Mahal was built by whom?

A Hindu king was the claim, drawn from P. N. Oak's writings that the Taj Mahal had begun as a Hindu temple, and the court threw the petition out.

What kind of place is the only building project linked to Mumtaz Mahal's own patronage?

A riverside garden is the only building work linked to her patronage, and her fondness for it may have shaped the form of her tomb.

Which Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan's father, had the powerful Nur Jahan as his chief consort?

Jahangir's chief consort, Nur Jahan, was Mumtaz Mahal's aunt and is considered by some historians the real power behind his throne.

What jewelled seat did Shah Jahan have made to celebrate his rule?

The Peacock Throne was carried off as a war trophy by the Persian ruler Nader Shah, who invaded India in 1739 and seized the Mughal treasures.

Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, was born in 1592 in which city, now in Pakistan?

Lahore, his birthplace, later gained the Shalimar Gardens and the Wazir Khan Mosque during his reign.

Which government agency has looked after the Taj Mahal since Indian independence in 1947?

The Archaeological Survey of India, set up in 1861 with Alexander Cunningham as its first surveyor, was shut down for lack of funds in 1865 and revived in 1871.

Which colours does the Taj Mahal's marble seem to take on?

Pink at dawn, golden by moonlight: visitors describe the white marble as pinkish in the morning and milky white by day.