Distortion of Indian History For Muslim Appeasement, Part 6F

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By: Dr Radhasyam Brahmachari

While the pseudo secular and the Marxist historians of India are bent on to prove that Taj Mahal is an example of Islamic architecture, well known Western authorities on architechture like E.B.Havell, Mrs.Kenoyer and Sir W.W.Hunterhave are convinced that the Taj Mahal was built in the Hindu temple style. Furthermore, Mr Havell, who prepared, for the first time, the ground plan of Taj Mahal, believed that ground plan of the ancient Hindu Chandi Seva Temple in Java is identical with that of the Taj.[1] We should also mention another feature of Taj Mahal to establish its Hindu origin. The Taj Mahal has identical entrance arches on all four sides and this is a typical style of Hindu architecture known as Chaturmukhi, (or.,four faced).

P N Oak has pointed out another evidence to prove that the Taj Mahal was there before the death of Shah Jahan’s wife Arjumand banu and he writes, “Peter Mundy, a Englishman records (in 1632, within a year of Mumtaz's death) having seen a gem studded gold railing around her tomb. Had the Taj been under construction for 22 years, a costly gold railing would not have been noticed by Peter Mundy within a year of Mumtaz's death. Such costly fixtures are installed in a building only after it is ready for use. This indicates that Mumtaz's centotaph was grafted in place of the Shivalinga in the centre of the gold railings. Subsequently the gold railings, silver doors, nets of pearls, gem fillings etc. were all carried away to Shahjahan's treasury. The seizure of the Taj thus constituted an act of highhanded Moghul robbery causing a big row between Shahjahan and Jaisingh.” [2][3]

It has been mentioned earlier that several other historians have mentioned the existence of the said railing and in this regard and before the advent of the Muslim invaders, when today’s Taj Mahal was a Shiva temple, there was an extremely valuable railing made of gold decorated with costly gems and jewels, surrounding the emblem of Lord Shiva. Later on, Shah Jahan misappropriated it and replaced the same with a marble railing, which one observes today. Historian R C Majumdar, regarding this older and valuable railing, says, “The marble railing around the cenotaphs is said to be a later replacement, the original having been one gold set with jewels.” [4] 

It has been mentioned above that E B Havell, for the first time, prepared the ground plan of octagonal central chamber of Taj Mahal. The figure1 shows Havell’s plan and one finds that the dimensions are given in feet and inches [5]. It is not difficult to understand that these could not be the units for measuring length of any part whatsoever of Taj Mahal, as these units were unknown to the people who designed and built it. These British units became popular in India only during the British Raj. Maulavi Moinuddin, in his “The Taj and Its Environments”, has used foot and inch in describing the various parts of the Taj Complex and writes, “In front of the magnificent gate there is a spacious platform, 211½ ft in length and 86½ ft in width.  …  The plot encompassed by four walls is a rectangle, 1,860 ft long, north and south, and 1,000 ft broad, east and west, with a total area of 2,07,000 sq yds or a little more than 42 acres. The gate is 100 ft high.  … The entrance is 10½ ft wide.” [6]

In fact, the first detailed scholastic study of the modular planning of the Taj complex was undertaken only in 1989, by Begley and Desai [7]. They analyzed the measurements of different parts of the complex listed by Lahori [8]. As mentioned above, Lahori was the official historian of Shah Jahan (AD 1628–56). During the Mughal Period, the standard units of linear measurement were Gaz, Zira etc. and Lahori described the dimensions of the buildings, gardens and other structures of the Taj complex in terms of these units.[9]. But Dr R. Balasubramaniam has succeeded to show that the narrations of Lahori were grossly illogical and erroneous.[10] Mr R A Barraud, has also sahown that all such measurements of Lahori were incorrect and baseless [11]

Figure 2 shows the ground plan of Taj Mahal prepared by Dr Balasubramaniam and one should notice that he utilized the traditional Indian or Hindu units as given in table-1. [12] He particularly used the Hindu unit Vitasti (V), which is equal to 12 Angulams or 25.256 cm. One also finds that the main octagonal structure of Taj Mahal is, in fact, measures a square of 270V×270V, which is divided into 9 squares of 90V×90V each. So the total area of this octagonal central chamber is 9× 90V× 90V. The four sides facing east, west, north and south are of 180 V each while the four sides facing northwest, northeast, southwest and northwest measure 45 V or 90/2 V each. Figure 3, on the other hand, shows the modular plan of the entire riverfront terrace and the marble platform on which the plinth of the octagonal central chamber rests. The figure shows that entire area of the structure is a square of 540V× 540V, while the plinth area is 450V×450V. It is important to notice that the length all the eight sides are integral multiples of Vitasti and this confirms that designers of Taj Mahal used the traditional Hindu units, as given in Table 1, for preparing the design of the building now called Taj Mahal.

Table-I The Hindu units of length measurement

Figure 4 shows a satellite image of the taj Mahal complex. The three sections of the complex are marked in this image and these are (T) the northernmost riverside terrace. (C) the gardens or the Charbag and (J) the Jilaukhana. The figure 5 shows the modular plan of the same sections. The important lengths, being longer, in these sections have been given in terms of the larger unit dhanus (D), which is equal to 108 angulam (A) or 9 vitastis (V), i.e. 190.404 cm. The design of this riverfront terrace and the area may be understood in terms of square grids of each side measuring 10 dhanus (D). The important lengths in this riverfront terrace and Charbag are shown in the plan of the same shown in Figure 5. The figure 4 and figure 5 display that the entire complex is perfectly symmetrical on both sides of the north-south axis.  Or in other words, “The overall plan of the Taj Mahal complex reveals that it was planned as bilateral mirror symmetry along the north–south axis.”[12]

The Table II, below, gives the data of actual measurement by Dr R Balasubramaniam in the units of Vitasti (V). From the table, one observes that Dr Balasubramaniam has expressed the lengths in multiples of Vitastis and converted the data in terms of cm. Then he measured the lengths in cm and the difference have been expressed as percentage errors. And the maximum error he obtained in the case of the N–S length of outer enclosure of attendants’ quarters in jilaukhana amounting to –5.68%.

Table II

Conclusion:

The conventional units of length measurement during the Mughal period were Gaz and Zira. But failure of Abdul Hamid Lahori to describe the modular planning of the Taj complex with these units indicates that some other units have been used for designing and constructing the Taj complex. The question of using English units like foot and inch does not arise as these units were unknown in India before the British Raj. On the other hand, the grand success of Dr Balasubramaniam to describe the modular design of the entire Taj Mahal complex using the traditional Hindu units like the Angulam, Vitasti, Dhanus etc, as narrated above, conclusively proves that the building complex, now known as Taj Mahal, was built before the arrival of the Muslim invaders in India. And hence it undoubtedly supports the assertion of P N Oak, E B Havell, Mrs.Kenoyer, Sir W.W.Hunterhave and others that Taj Mahal is a marvelous exhibit of pure Hindu architecture.

References:

[1] http://www.flex.com/~jai/articles/tajmahal.html

[2] P N Oak, Tajmahal-The True Story, A Ghosh Publication (1969), p-251

[3] http://www.faithfreedom.org/content/true-story-taj-mahal

[4] R.C. Majumdar (General Editor), The History and Culture of the Indian People, 

     Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan   (in 12 volumes), Mumbai (1996) VII, 795.

[5] E B Havell, Indian Architecture, Chapter XI

[6] Maulavi Moinuddin Ahmad, The Taj and Its Environments, as quoted by PN Oak,

     Tajmahal: The True Story (1969), p-168

[7] Begley, W. E. and Desai, Z. A., Taj Mahal – The Illumined Tomb:An Anthology of 

     Seventeenth Century Mughal and European Documentary Sources, University of  

      Washington Press, Washington ,1989, pp. 64–76.

[8] A H Lahori, Padshahnama (eds Kabir-ud-din Ahmad, M. and Abd al-Rahim, M.),  

     Calcutta , 1866–72, vol. 2, pp. 322–330.

[9] Habib, I. , Measures of land. In The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1556–1707),  

       Asia Publishing House, 1963,  pp. 353–366.

[10] 5. Balasubramaniam, R., New insights on metrology during the Mughal period. 

       Indian J. Hist. Sci., 2008, 43, 569–588.

[11] Barraud, R. A., Modular planning of the Taj. In The Complete Taj Mahal and the  

          Riverfront Gardens of Agra (ed. Koch, E.), Thames & Hudson, London , 2006, pp. 

         108–109.

[12] R Balasubramaniam, Current Science, Vol 97, No 1, 10 July, 2009.

                                                                                          (To be continued)