Inextricably associated with the royal love legend of Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz, the Taj Mahal is regarded by most modern visitors as the symbol of eternal love. Recent historical research, however, suggests the world's most famous tomb complex encodes a somewhat less poetic and poignant vision - one more revealing of the Moghul emperor's megalomania and unbridled vanity than his legendary romantic disposition.

 

The clues to the Taj's hidden symbolism lie in the numerous Islamic inscriptions which play a key part in the overall design of the building. Fourteen chapters of the Koran are quoted at length here, dealing with two principal themes: the Day of Judgement, and the pleasures of Heaven. The first appears in the broad band of intricate calligraphy over the main gateway. Citing the last phrase of chapter 89, it invites the faithful to "Enter thou My Paradise". This is one of only two occasions in the Islamic scriptures when God speaks directly to man, and the quotation stresses the dual function of the Taj as both a tomb garden and replica of Heaven, complete with the four Rivers of Paradise and central Pool of Abundance.

In a dramatic break with tradition, the actual tomb is situated not in the middle of the gardens, as was customary, but at the far end of a rectangle. Recently, the theory of symbolic association has been taken a step further with the rediscovery of an enigmatic diagram contained in an ancient Sufi text , The Revelations of Mecca by renowned medieval mystic, Ibn al 'Arabi. Entitled The Plain of Assembly on the Day of Judgement , the diagram, which scholars know Shah Jahan's father had a copy of in his library, corresponds exactly to the layout of the Taj Mahal complex, proving beyond doubt, they now claim, that the tomb was intended as a reproduction of God's throne. Given that the emperor's remains are enshrined within it, the inevitable conclusion is that, aside from being an extravagant romantic, Shah Jahan possessed an opinion of his own importance that knew no bounds.

The one possible flaw in this theory comes in the form of a legend that the emperor intended his own body to lie not alongside that of his wife, but in a separate Black Taj , on the opposite bank of the Jamuna. The black-marble version would have been a perfect mirror image of its white forerunner. However, no one regarded such rumours as anything more than fanciful until archeologists recently unearthed ruins on the far river bank at Katchpura. Comprising formal Moghul gardens and foundations of exactly the same size as the Taj, they lend credence to the theory that Shah Jahan began work on his own black tomb but never finished it, either because of lack of funds, or due to his prelonged incarceration in Agra Fort.

While scholars continue to debate the symbolism of the Taj, and the possible existence of its black counterpart, they are united in disbelieving the popular, but wholly apocryphal, image of Shah Jahan's last days as propounded by the tour guides. Far from spending his old age gazing whimsically down the river to the tomb of his beloved wife, the Moghuls' most decadent emperor expired after a protracted bout of sex and drug-taking. His death in 1666, at the ripe old age of 74, was brought about not by grief, but by a massive overdose of opium and aphrodisiacs