Recent scholarship has questioned the role that love played in the construction of the monument. But for better and worse, Diana and Michael Preston’s “Taj Mahal: Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire” (319 pages. Walker Books) makes an argument for the commingling of love and architecture. It’s unfortunate that this comprehensive history of the Mogul Empire is coated with a romantic patina (if rotting bodies ever gave off the “sweet stink of death,” it must have been a localized incident), but not everything has been sanitized. We’re presented a Shakespearean world of intrigue and betrayal, in which punishment is swift and brutal, and fratricide is commonplace.
But the empire was marked by a dual commitment to the arts and warfare. Shah Jahan spent the majority of his life on military campaigns, but found time to order the construction of hundreds of buildings. It was Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan’s son, who had little taste for the arts—or, apparently, his father. Ten years after the completion of the Taj, Aurangzeb locked the ailing Shah Jahan in the Red Fort at Agra before turning his attentions to imprisoning and executing all other threats to his sovereignty—just as Shah Jahan had done before him. The deposed ruler remained at the Red Fort until his death in 1666. From atop his chambers he could see the Taj in the distance, a constant reminder of his lost love.
