Believe it or not
April 25th, 2007 12:24 am | more than words | Thinknice | 224 Views|
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No one has ever challenged it except Prof. P. N. Oak, who believes the whole world has been duped. In his book Taj Mahal: The True Story, Oak says
the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz’s tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of
Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya ) .
In the course of his research Oak discovered that the Shiva temple palace was usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. In his own court ch ronicle, Badshahnama, Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai SIngh for Mumtaz’s burial .
The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur still retains in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for surrendering the Taj building. Using captured temples and mansions, as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers.
For example, Humayun,Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions. Oak’s inquiries began with the name of Taj Mahal. He says the term ” Mahal ” has never been used for a building in any Muslim countries from Afghanisthan to Algeria . “The unusual explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal was illogical in atleast two respects.
Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani ,” he writes. Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters ‘Mum’ from a woman’s
name to derive the remainder as the name for the building.”Taj Mahal, he claims, is a corrupt version of Tejo Mahalaya, or Lord Shiva’s Palace . Oak
also says the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists Not a
single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan’s time corroborates the love story.
Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan’s era, and was a temple dedicated to Shiva, worshipped by
Rajputs of Agra city. For example, Prof. Marvin Miller of New York took a few samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan. European traveler Johan
Albert Mandelslo,who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz’s death), describes the life of the cit y in his memoirs. But he makes no
reference to the Taj Mahal being built. The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz’s death, also suggest the
Taj was a noteworthy building well before Shah Jahan’s time.
Prof. Oak points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief of the Taj Mahal being a typical Hindu temple
rather than a mausoleum. Many rooms in the Taj ! Mahal have remained sealed since Shah Jahan’s time and are still inaccessible to the public . Oak
asserts they contain a headless statue of Lord Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples Fearing political
backlash, Indira Gandhi’s government t ried to have Prof. Oak’s book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the
first edition dire consequences . There is only one way to discredit or validate Oak’s research.
The current government should open the sealed rooms of the Taj Ma hal under U.N. supervision, and let international experts investigate.
Marema
Bangalore
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April 25th, 2007 at 7:13 am
First, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani ”
Her real name was Arjumand Banu Begum, born April 1593, died June 7, 1631. Professor Oak’s theory would be loved by BJP hardliners.
April 25th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Not a new thing to me…and to other historians too..I guessed. He thil hi chuan sawi a hlawh thin khawp mai. A chhuah tirh phei chuan inhnialna a chawkchhuak nasa fe a ni awm asin.
Source hi i tarlang lo nih hi maw le…anyway..good stuffs, Marema..
April 25th, 2007 at 11:03 am
Ya, quite old… I rember posting this at zoram.com
but then, these things things circulate so much. You never know when it will land up in your company’s newsgroup or as a forward in you inbox.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
“In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama, Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai SIngh for Mumtaz’s burial.”
- I have gone thru an english translation of the Badshahnama, and nowhere have I read about Shah Jahan saying a mansion was taken.
“The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur still retains in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for surrendering the Taj building.”
- How come nobody knows of these secret documents except Oak?
“Using captured temples and mansions, as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers.
For example, Humayun,Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions.”
- Am not so sure of this statement either. Akbar’s tomb for sure was constructed, and so was Safdarjung’s - anyone who’s been to Delhi can vouch for Safdarjung’s tomb.
As Vladimir Putin says, BJP hardliners would love this !!
April 26th, 2007 at 6:01 am
interesting read…
source/reference pls
April 26th, 2007 at 6:11 am
here it is:- https://www.designcommunity.com...../6485.html
not to discredit marema but it is wise to disclose the source of information
especially when posting someones article.
an ’sue’ palh ang che…hehe
April 26th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Here’s some more info. I got from the link jonan gave:
Posted by girish on October 13, 2001 at 01:11:11:
In Reply to: Fact about Taj Mahal - India posted by Rashi on July 23, 2001 at 23:16:09:
P.N.Oak is a fanatic who dupes gullible people with specious arguments.
In the case of the Taj Mahal:
It is true that there is no mention of the ‘Taj Mahal’ in the Badshahnama. But there is ample mention of the grand Rauza - e - Mumtaz Mahal. This was shortened to Taj Mahal in colloquial speech. About Mumtaz’s name, it was actually Arjumand Bano Begum, but she was referred to as Mumtaz Mahal, and there are many such references to her in Mughal records.
Many of the names we use for our great monuments are similarly colloquial: the Konark temple, the Ajanta Caves etc.
Raja Jai Singh was one of the pillars of the Mughal establishment, one of Shah Jahan’s most trusted leiutenants. How likely is it that Shah Jahan, who had the whole of North India as his fief, would snatch a valued temple of Raja Jai Singh and offend the Rajput by converting this temple into a Muslim mausoleum with mosque attached?
When P.N.Oak first began to write about the Taj Mahal in the 1960s, he claimed that it was a Rajput palace; a few decades later he began claiming that it was a Shiva temple. The fact is that the Taj Mahal looks nothing like a Rajput Palace or a Hindu temple, and looks exactly like what it is: the pinnacle of Muslim architecture in India.
There are many travellers’ accounts contemporary to the building of the Taj Mahal, including that of the travellers Tavernier and Bernier, the first of whom witnessed the construction of the edifice.
The GROUNDS for the Taj Mahal were acquired from Raja Jai Singh for the purposes of building the Taj, but there was no building on them. In keeping with the Timurid tradition of never having royal tombs on usurped or conquered land, Jai Singh was compensated with three mansions in return for the grounds on which the Taj was built. In fact, Jai Singh’s palace, very close to the grounds which were used for the Taj, became historically noteworthy when Shivaji was incarcerated there and later made a daring escape. Would Jai Singh have two palaces side by side, or is it more likely that the grounds of his mansion were taken over for building a memorial to the dead empress of India?
The Taj Mahal stands in an impeccable line of Mughal tomb and mosque contruction: the mausoleum of Humayun, with its octagonal base, is one of the inspirations behind the Taj; the mausoleum of Itmad ud Daulah at Agra, built in marble with a lot of decorative inlay work, is another. The Moti Masjid mosque, also built in Agra by Shah Jahan immediately after the construction of the Taj was completed, continues this tradition.
It is true that the Taj Mahal contains many Hindu motifs, but this only points to the liberal nature of the Mughals before Aurangzeb. In Akbar’s time Hindu motifs actually predominated in some Mughla constructions. So we should not be surprised to find a kalash or Hindu floral motifs in the Taj Mahal.
Carbon dating will only reveal how old the wood in a door is, not how long ago the door was carved. In other words, if a 300 year old tree was felled to carve the Taj door, it would register as a 600 year old piece of wood today. Besides, some of the original features of the Taj have been reconstructed after the damage caused by Jats in the 18th century. A new door may conceivably have been placed there, I will need to check the facts on this.
The basic point of Oak and his fellow fanatics is that Hindus produced all that is beautiful and valuable in India, and Muslims were only despoilers and conquerors. It is a tragic fact that many temples were destroyed by invaders, particularly in North India. But to compensate for this loss by claiming as Hindu architecture which is clearly Muslim is irrational and counter-productive.