Shah Jahan a Mogul ruler, erected the monument as a tomb for a beloved wife, Arjumand Banu Begum, better known by her title of Mumtaz Mahal (beloved ornament of the palace) or Taj Mahal India (crown of the palace). She died in 1631, the construction of the tomb, begun the following year, employed some 20,000 workmen for nearly twenty years.

Designs for the tomb were submitted by the leading architects of the mogul empire. The one chosen for execution was probably by a Persian, Ustad Isa. The tomb is the focal point of a vaste rectangle, two thousand feet long and one thousand feet wide. The tomb, at the center of the platform, is a square in plan, with chanfered corners. At the center of the plan is the octagonal tomb chamber, crowned by a shallow dome and entered through lofty portals in each face of the structure. On the exterior the lofty arched portal in each face is flanked by two stages of niches, and the structure is crowned by a bulbous dome which rises for above the shallow inner dome of the tomb chamber.

On both the exterior and interior the structural core is covered with white marble decorated with designs inlaid in semiprecious stones. The structure seems to mirror the mood of the skies. Simple proportions dictate plan and elevation relationships, the width of the structure equals its total height, and the distance from the floor level to the parapet over the arched portals is just one half the total height.

The tomb is a vast rectangle. One short side of this composition, that on the north, runs along the bank of the Jumma River. The southern third of the area includes service structures and ends at a monumental gateway leading into the walled section, which comprises the major part of the rectangle.

Across the entire river side is a raised platform with high minarets at its four corners. At the west side of the platform is a mosque and at the east a reception hall. The infinite variety of Taj Mahal make the structure a jewel of architecture, the infinite richness of detail and the consummate skill displayed in the execution make the structure unique in its general class.

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