The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-04-08
TAI MAHAL AND AGRA
A QUEENS TOMB WHOSE ARCHITEC-
TURE is A WORLDS WONDER.
Nowhere Has It's Beauty Been Sur
passed, and the Beholder Is
DaxzIed by the Sight.

AS the best gem upon her zone''
neither he America knew anything of
Agra and the Tai Mahal-easily, with its
surroundings, the first building in the
world. Two hundred and fifty years ago
the Queen of one of midas less-known
Kings, the predecessor of the great Akbar
died. She was marvelously beautiful
woman and the niece of Nourmahal, the
original of Tom Moore's Light of the
Harem," who was as bad as her niece was
good. One of the greatest pieces of palace
architecture in India, a few miles away,
was the home of this same Queen. Her
bathroom, set with thousand mirrors, is
still in excellent preservation. and so are
the glorious halls that crown the bastions
of the vast fort from which Agra takes its
name and which overlooks the River
Jumna.
The Tai Mahal is a mosque tomb, built Of
pure white marble, inlaid with millions or
precious stones. Every one has seen either
g. picture or a model, but none of them do
1t justice, for they all detach it from Its
surroundings, which are quite as wonder
full and beautiful as the tomb itself. I'm
agine a rectangle of ten acres of ground
situated upon river bank, completely in
closed by a magnificent arcade of red sand
stone. At each corner beautiful towers of
pure Moorish architecture; at the center,
opposite the tomb, a magnificent gateway,
and in the center of the lateral arcades
corresponding small mosques on each side;
and then the most lovely garden conceva-
BILE, planted with grand trees and alive
with birds and perfume, and you have the
dr. oil
The tomb itself is upon the river bank, and
is situated upon raised platform of grand
proportions. 1t is crowned with glorious
bubble of white, inlaid marble. flanled on
each side, Saracen fashion, with smaller
6omes. The Mohammedans are the only
people in the whole world who have made
lacework out of solid stone, for lacework
only can be properly called the endless
beautiful screens with which the every
window and door is filled, and which have
the effect of filtering this burning Asiatic
sunshine into softness which much re-
sembles our Indian summer afternoons. The
tomb itself is marvelously set off by two ad-
| joining mosques of red sandstone, trimmed
| with inlaid marble, of majestic proportions,
| either of which, if set by itself, away from
| the Tai" would be among celebrated
| buildings. The best views of this tomb are
| from the gardens and alcoves, where the
grand trees half reveal and half conceal
the white splendors of the main building.
Here nature trained by the hand of mau.
! comes to elevate and glorify art in the
form of the most perfect building ever
| reared by the hand of man.
A MARVELLOUS EXTERIOR.
phere. Everybody who has been in st. Pc
| ters Church in Rome st. Pauls in Lon
| don has noticed that. So with the interior
| of the Tai Mahal 1t is octagonal in form,
| with a great facade in front. Eight sep
arate chapeIs surround the tomb ITSELF
| each one of them a majestic room. These
| signify the eight children born to the dead
queen. The center contains the sarcophagi
of Shah Jahan and his wife, his much the
| larger of the two 1t is worth noticing
| that, although a Mohammedan King, he
| had but one wife. Naturally, in visiting
| this greatest work of Mohammedan art,
my mind and memory dwelt upon the tomb
| OF the Medici at Florence, Italy, built by
| Michael Angelo. There is no exterior to
| the last tomb, nor any surroundings what
| ever, except an adjoining sepulcher, vulgar
| i'm its wealth and built by the disciples of
| the great Angelo. I must give the pre-
cedence to the work of the mighty Flor
entine but as remarked. this is confined
| to a single room, redolent with Christian
| ity Perhaps If I could see this interior
of the Tai Mahal undisturbed by the pes
tiferous human insects who, under the
guise of guides, worry the life out of the
4
| But outside of the building, where you can
shake off these nuisances and enjoy the SOL
itude of your emotions, it is different.
| Here the superb beauty of this masterpiece
| of Saracen art bursts upon you in all of
| its grand reality. 1 am sure that nowhere
| in any Christian land has this great work
| of architecture ever been surpassed, If
equaled, and generally I doubt if, a
| whole, Christianity has given the world
better architecture than the heather relig-
| ions The Parthenon at Athens and the
| great temple at Karnac. Egypt, and now
| the Tai Mahal at Agra, each the product
| of pagan religion (as we call them) are far
| in advance of any similar buildings in the
| Christian world. On the other hand, Meth
| er of these religions except the Greeks,
| has given the world either music or paint
| ing worth naming.
| OTHER WONDERS OF AGRA.
The Tai Mahal by no means exhausts
| the architectural wonders of Agra. The
| fort is an enormous building, the product
| of such rulers as Akbar, aided by I'M
| bounded wealth and genius. Windsor Cas-
| tie at London could easily be put in one
corner of Agra fort and never be noticed.
4 Tennyson has given us a very fair descrip-
| ton of this vast building in his Palace of
| Art" and Of its occupants in his Dream
| of Fair Women" and "Ackbar's Dream
| written shortly before his death. 1 keep
| the great poet constantly by my side in
/ these Indian wanderings. What better pic
ture of Shah Jahan's wife than this:
"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall
And most divinely fair
These verses have their exact counter
part in the palace here in Fort Agra. built
| by this same Akbar: