Taj is an ancient Hindu palace.1.Shahjahan’s own court chronicler Mulla Abdul Hamid’s admission. 2.Mr.Nurul Hasan Siddiqui’s book, The City of Taj, reiterates the same position. 3.Tavernier’s testimony too establishes that a lofty palace had been obtained, and that it was a world tourist attraction even before Mumtaz’s burial. 4.Emperor Shahjahan’s great great grandfather Babur’s Memoirs refer to the Taj Mahal 104 years before Mumtaz’s death whose tomb the Taj is supposed to be. 5.The Encyclopaedia Britannica has been quoted to show that the Taj Mahal building complex comprises guest rooms, guard rooms and stables. These are all adjuncts of a temple palace but never of a tomb. In addition to the above we have ,in the foregoing pages,advanced many other proofs as follows: 6.The very name Taj Mahal means a crown palace or a resplendent shrine (Tejo Maha Alaya) and not a tomb . 7.Shahjahan’s reign was as full of turmoil and warfare as that of most other Muslim rulers of India. He could not therefore, have any wealth, peace, security or inclination to launch on such an ambitious project as the Taj Mahal. 8.Shahjahan’s lechery and profligacy ruled out any special attachment to Mumtaz, whose mausoleum the Taj has been misrepresented to be. 9.Shahjahan was cruel, hard hearted and stingy ;as such he could never have the artist’s soft heart and a liberal patron’s generosity to lavish wealth on a building to house a corpse. 10. Mulla Abdul Hamid Lahori, the court chronicler, mentions no architect and estimates the cost of the work done to be only Rs 40,00,000 which clearly shows that no new building was erected. 11.Shahjahan, whose reign was supposed to be a golden period of history, has not left even a scrap of authentic paper about the construction of Taj Mahal. There are no authentic orders commissioning the Taj ,no correspondence for the purchase or acquisition of the so-called site ,no design drawings no bills or receipts and no expense account sheets Some of those usually produced or referred to have already been proved to be forgeries. 12.Had Shahjahan really been the conceiver of the Taj Mahal, he need not have specially instructed Mulla Abdul Hamid Lahori not to forget mentioning or describing its ‘construction’ in the official chronicles, because the grandeur and majesty of the Taj as the finest achievement of a ruling monarch could never be lost sight of by a paid court chronicler. 13.That Shahajahan could not even in his wildest dreams conceive undertaking such a gorgeous project is apparent from the fact that even the Muslim accounts tell us that he made the workers toil on meagre rations without giving them any cash payment. Tavernier tells us that Shahjahan could not marshal even timber enough for as much as scaffolding. Some accounts have also pointed out that Shahjahan made Rajas and Maharajas pay a large part of the “cost”. So even the additions and alterations required in converting a Hindu palace to the semblance of a Muslim tomb were made by compelling labourers to toil for a mere meagre food allocation and by imposing levies on subservient chieftains. 14. If a stupendous monument like the Taj Mahal were specially built for the burial of a consort there would be a ceremonial burial date and it would not go unrecorded. But not only is the burial date not mentioned but even the approximate period during which Arjumand Banu Begum may have been buried in the Taj Mahal varies from six months to nine years of her death. 15. Mumtaz was married to Shahjahan when the latter was 21 years old. Royal children in his times used to be married much before their teens. This shows that Arjumand Banu was Shahjahan’s umpteenth wife. There was thus no reason why she should have been buried in a special monument. 16. Having been a commoner by birth Arjumand Banu was not entitled to a special monument 17.History makes no special mention of any out of the way attachment or romance between the two, unlike that of Jahangir and Nurjahan. This shows that the story of their love is a concoction seeking to justify the myth about the building of the taj over her body. 18. Shahjahan was no patron of art. Had he been one, he would not have had the heart to chop off the hands of those who are said to have toiled to ‘build’ the monument for his wife. An art lover especially one disconsolate on his wife’s death,would not indulge in an orgy of maiming skilful craftsman. But the maiming story is apparently true because made to toil mercilessly on meagre rations on a palace usurped from its erstwhile Hindu master, the infuriated workmen broke out in revolt. 19.There is no record in history that Shahjahan had any special infatuation for Mumtaz. In fact history records that he used to run after various other women from his own daughter to his maids. 20.The existence of the landing ghat at the rear suggests a temple palace, not a tomb. 21.Even the central marble structure consists of a 23-room marble palace suit which is superfluous for a tomb. 22.The plan tallies with ancient Hindu architectural design and specifications. 23.The entire Taj building consists of over 1000 rooms along its corridor, in two basements, on the upper floors and in its numerous towers, which clearly bears out the contention that it was meant to be a temple palace. 24. The many annexes, guard and guest rooms etc. prove that it is a temple palace. The pleasure pavilions in the Taj premises could never form part of a tomb but only of a palace.
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