The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1879-07-30
a Description Of the Taj--The Most
Splendid Tomb on earth.

The principle which inspires these
magnificent and useless tombs is of Tar
tar origin. The Tartars, we are told, build
their tOmbs in such q manner as to serve
for places of enjoyment for themselves
and their friends during their lifetime.
While the builder lives he uses the build.
ing as house of recreation, receives his
friends, gives entertainments. When he
dies he is buried within the walls, and
from that hour the building is abandoned
1t is ever afterward tomb, given alone
to the dead. There is something Egyp-
tian in this idea of house Of feasting be.
coming tomb of great prince, as he
walks amid crowds of retainers and friends
knowing that the walls that resound with
laughter will look down on his dust. This
will account for SO many of the stipend
GUS tombs that you find in Upper India.
Happily 1t does not account for the Tai.
II the TAI had been Tartar idea-a house
of merriment to the builder and of sorrow
atterward-it would have lost something
OF the poetry which adds to it's beauty.
The Tai is the expression of the grief of
the Emperor Shah Jehan for his wife,
who was known in her day as Muntaz-I l.
Mabab, or the Exalted One of the Palace.
She was herself of royal blood,
with Persian ancestry intermingled.
She was married in 1915 to
Shah Jehan, then heir to the throne, and
having borne him seven children, died in
1929, in giving birth to the eighth child
! Her life, therefore, was in the highest
sense consecrated, for she gave it up in
the fulfillment of supreme and holv
duty, in itself conservation Of woman
hood: The husband brought the body of
his wife and mother to these gardens and
entombed it until the monument of his
grief should be DONE It was seventeen
years before the work was finished. The
cost is unknown, the best authorities
rating it at more than $2,0OO,OOO. The
millions of dollars in the time of Shah
Jehan, with labor for the asking, would
be worth as much as twenty million in
our day. For seventeen years 10000
men worked on the Tai, and their wages
was daily portion of corn.
The effect of the Tai as seen from the
gate, looking down the avenue of trees,
isgrand. The dome and towers seem to
rest in the air, and it would not surprise
you if they became clouds and vanished
into rain. The gardens are the perfec-
ton Of horticulture, and you see here
as in no part of India that I have
visited, the wealth and beauty of nature
in Hindostan. The landscape seems to
be flushed with roses, with all vari-
etles of the rose, and that most sun
ny and queenly of flowers seems to
strew your path and bid you welcome
as you saunter along the avenue and
up the ascending slope that leads to the
shrine of husbands love and mothers
conservation. There is row of fountains
which throw out spray and cool the air,
and when you pass the trees and come to
the door of the building It's greatness and
its beauty. Mr.. Keene took us to various
parts of the garden, that we might see it
from different points of view. I could
see no value in one view beyond the 9TH
rer. And when our friend, in the spirit of
courteous kindness pointed out the de-
fects of the building-that it was too
much this, or would have been perfect if
it had been little less of something else
there was just the least disposition to
resent criticism and to echo the opinion
of Mr.. Borie, who, as he stood looking at
the exquisite towers anu solemn marble
walls, said: cit was worth coming to In
dia to see the Tai" value that criticism
because it is that of practical business
man, concerned with affairs, and not dis
posed to see poetic side to any subject.
What he saw in the Tai was the idea that
its founder meant to convey-the idea of
solemn, overpowering and unapproacha-
BILE beauty.
AS you enter you see vast dome,
every inch Of which is enriched with in
scriptions in Arabic, verses from the
Koran, engraved marble, mosaics, dec.
orations in agate and jasper. In the cen
ter are two small tombs of white marble,
modestly carved. These cover the resting.
place of the Emperor and his wife, whose
bodies are in the. vault underneath. In
other lays the Turkish priests read the
Koran from the gallery, and you can
imagine how solemn must have been the
effect of the words chanted in a pricstly
cadence by the echo that answers and
again answers the chanting of some tune
by one Of the party. The more closely
you examined the TAI the more you are
perplexed to decide whether it's beauty is
to be found in the general effect of the
design as seen from afar, or the minute
and finished decorations which cover every
wall. The general idea of the building
is never lost. There is nothing trivial
| about the Tai, no grotesque Gothic mold.
ing or Towering Corinthian columns AL
is cold and white and chaste and pure
You may form an idea of the size Of the
Tai from the figures of the measurement
of the royal engineers. From the base
to the top of the center dome is 139 IL
feet; to the summit of the pinnacle, 243 1-2
feet. It stands on the BANKS of the River
Jumna, and it is said that Shah Jehan
intended to build counterpart in black
marble in which his own ashes could
rest. But misfortunes came to Shah
Jehan-ungrateful children, strife, de-
position-and when he died, his son felt
that the Tai was large enough for both
father and mother. One is almost glad
that the black marble idea never germin
ated. The Tai, by itself alone, is unap-
proachable. A duplicate would have de-
tracted from its peerless beauty.
We remained in the gardens until the
sun went down, and we had to hurry to
our carriages not to be caught in the
swiftly descending night. The gardener