Subject:THE TRUE STORY OF TAJ MAHAL Date:9.10.2004 6:02 From:"Mohan Gupta" To: a4India THE TRUE STORY OF TAJ MAHAL Romantic story of Taj Mahal may be fiction The Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan in the memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal built the Taj Mahal. It was built in 22 years (1631 to 1653) By 20,000 artisans brought to India from all over the world. Many people believe Ustad Isa of Iran designed it. This is what your guide probably told you if you ever visited the Taj Mahal. No one has ever challenged it except Professor P.N. Oak, who believes that the whole world has been duped in his book Taj Mahal. The True Story In his book Taj Mahal: The True Story, Oak says the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz Mahal's tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya). In the course of his research Oak discovered that Shiva temple palace was usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. Shah Jahan then remodeled the palace into his wife's memorial. In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama, Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz's burial. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur still retains in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for surrendering the Taj building. Using captured temples and mansions as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers. For example, Humayun, Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions. Oak's inquiries begin with the name Taj Mahal. He says this term does not occur in any Mogul court papers or chronicles, even after Shah Jahan's time. The term "Mahal" has never been used for a building in any of the Muslim countries, from Afghanistan to Algeria. "The unusual explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal is illogical in at least two respects. Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani, he writes. "Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters 'Mum' from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name for the building." Taj Mahal, he claims, is a corrupt version of Tejo-Mahalaya, or the Shiva's Palace. Oak also says the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists. Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan's time corroborates the love story. (According to another different account Mumtaz was a Hindu married lady, whose real Hindu name I am forgetting now. Once Shah Jahan happened to see her and was wonder struck by the beauty of Hindu lady. He then prisoned the Hindu husband of Hindu lady for about two years and forcing him to divorce his Hindu wife. Hindu husband kept refusing of divorcing his wife. After 2 years, Shah Jahan killed the Hindu husband of Hindu lady and then married the widowed Hindu lady by force. After marriage he named the Hindu lady Mumtaz.) Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan's era, and was a temple palace dedicated to Shiva worshiped by the Rajputs of Agra city. For example, Professor Marvin Miller of New York took a few samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan. European traveler Johan Albert Mandelslo who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz's death) describes the life of the city in his memoirs. But he makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built. The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz's death, also suggest the Taj was a noteworthy building long well before Shah Jahan's time. Oak points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief of the Taj Mahal being a typical Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum. Many rooms in the Taj Mahal have remained sealed since Shah Jahan's time, and are still not accessible to the public. Oak asserts they contain a headless statue of Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples. Fearing political backlash, Indira Gandhi's government tried to have Oak's book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the first edition with dire consequences. There is only one way to discredit or validate Oak's research. The current Indian government should open the sealed rooms of the Taj Mahal under UN supervision and let international experts investigate. Do circulate this to all your friends and let them know about this reality. I would like to add that near the rivers only big Shiva temples are there. Also... the designs are like BEL leaves and also they say that water falls at some place ...and that can be the place where the shivling would have been. Also people tell that actual grave of Mumtazmahal is in Rajasthan somewhere. WE should do something... For those who do not think this is a true article go through these: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A5220 http://www.designcommunity.com/discussion/6485.html http://www.humnri.com/Humex/Submission/bhat/bhat69.asp http://www.gurgaonharyana.com/taj.htm The Tajmahal is Tejomahalay Probably there is no one who has been duped at least once in a lifetime. But can the whole world be duped? This may seem impossible. But in the matter of Indian and world history the world can be duped in many respects for hundreds of years and still continues to be duped. The world famous Tajmahal is a glaring instance. For all the time, money and energy that people over the world spend in visiting the Tajmahal, they are dished out of concoction. Contrary to what visitors are made to believe the Taj Mahal is not a Islamic mausoleum but an ancient Shiva Temple known as Tejo Mahalaya which the 5th generation Mogul Emperor Shahjahan commandeered from the then Maharaja of Jaipur. The Tajmahal should therefore be viewed as a temple palace and not as a tomb. That makes a vast difference. You miss the details of its size, grandeur, majesty and beauty when you take it to be a mere tomb. When told that you are visiting a temple palace you won't fail to notice its annexes, ruined defensive walls, hillocks, moats, cascades, fountains, majestic garden, hundreds of rooms archived verandahs, terraces, multi stored towers, secret sealed chambers, guest rooms, stables, the trident (Trishul) pinnacle on the dome and the sacred, esoteric Hindu letter "OM" carved on the exterior of the wall of the sanctum sanctorum now occupied by the cenotaphs. For detailed proof of this breath-taking discovery, you may read the well-known historian Shri P.N. Oak's celebrated book titled "Tajmahal: The True Story". But let us place before you for the time being an exhaustive summary of the massive evidence ranging over hundred points: 1.The term Tajmahal itself never occurs in any Mogul court paper or chronicle even in Aurangzeb's time. The attempt to explain it away as Taj-i-mahal is therefore ridiculous. 2.The ending "Mahal" is never Muslim because in none of the Muslim countries around the world from Afghanistan to Algeria is there a building known as "Mahal". 3.The unusual explanation of the term Tajmahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal, who is buried in it, is illogical in at least two respects viz., firstly her name was never Mumtaj Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani and secondly one cannot omit the first three letters "Mum" from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name of the building. 4.Since the lady's name was Mumtaz (ending with 'Z') the name of the building derived from her should have been Taz Mahal, if at all, and not Taj (spelled with a 'J'). 5.Several European visitors of Shahjahan's time allude to the building as Taj-e-Mahal is almost the correct tradition, age old Sanskrit name Tej-o-Mahalaya, signifying a Shiva temple. Contrarily Shahjahan and Aurangzeb scrupulously avoid using the Sanskrit term and call it just a holy grave. 6.The tomb should be understood to signify NOT A BUILDING but only the grave or cenotaph inside it. This would help people to realize that all dead Muslim courtiers and royalty including Humayun, Akbar, Mumtaz, Etmad-ud-Daula and Safdarjung have been buried in capture Hindu mansions and temples. 7.Moreover, if the Taj is believed to be a burial place, how can the term Mahal, i.e., mansion apply to it? 8.Since the term Taj Mahal does not occur in Mogul courts it is absurd to search for any Mogul explanation for it. Both its components namely, 'Taj' and' Mahal' are of Sanskrit origin. Another article on the same topic: http://www.telugupeople.com/discussion/article.asp?id=10761 I hope the anti Oak crowd will see the truth now. If nothing else, why most of the rooms and the like are kept sealed, as if they are hiding a secret? But India is a majority Hindu nation, now controlled by Hindu nationalists whose bete noire is the Muslim invaders who built the Taj. As Hindu nationalists never fail to remind, the Moguls were marauding conquerors who brutalized the bodies, psyches, and monuments of Hindu India. But they also gave the country many of its most beautiful buildings and gardens, which lie almost casually studded throughout Delhi and Agra and nearby Fatehpur Sikri, the fabulous abandoned city built by Akbar. Some ardent Hindu nationalists ignore this; others deny it altogether. In our office library I recently unearthed a small volume called the "The Taj Mahal Is a Temple Palace," by one P.N. Oak in 1974, and billed as "An Epoch-Making Discovery Which Has Proved All Histories and Historians Wrong." He argues that the Taj was "built by a powerful Rajput king in pre-Muslim times," constructed "of the Hindus, for the Hindus and by the Hindus." Obviously, this is not a story of Tejo Mahalaya. What NYT wrote above is nonsense. Certainly I can't find a good reason why polemics should be dragged into a column of travelogue. What nationalists or any body else have got to do with Shah Jahan? The point we are looking here is about whether Taj has been a rehash of a Shiva temple as claimed. Nationalists or not, the fact what Shah Jahan has done or not done cannot be undone. And admittedly, this claim is made as long ago as 1974 (exactly 30 yrs ago). Moreover, if the author found the book of P.N. Oak and is a regular visitor to Taj Mahal, he should have supported or refuted the visual points made by Oak instead of going off (wrongly so) on the religious polemics. Facts are presented here for the benefit of other members. Maybe some of you, who have visited Taj, may look into these aspects: http://www.stephen-knapp.com/was_the_taj_mahal_a_vedic_temple.htm fantastic set of photos on Taj Mahal which tends to prove the claims of the Oak given below. The site also lists some online articles on the issue. 2http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/taj_oak.html Until the lions have their own historians, the history of hunt will always glorify the hunter. The Indians have been most unfortunate that India has been under foreign and minority rule since 712 A.D. until 15.8.1947 and this fact we must accept first then only we can think realistically. Unfortunately things got even worse because of daydreamer J.L. Nehru AND HIS POLICY OF APPEASEMENT OF MINORITY. The apartheid may have ended in South Africa but not in Bharat so unless there is one law for all the citizens a country cannot be strong so this must be our first priority in having similar common laws and Uniform Civil Code. It may be worth for people to read the book by P.N. Oak "Taj Mahal the Hindu temple". He had written that it was investigated by NY archaeologist by carbon dating and govt. did not allow till that date for full-scale investigation. It was built by Rajput king as MANDIR called TAJOMAHALA but was converted by Mogul king into mausoleum. The original things are just skin deep; and if superficial tiles are removed it may so some things! Mumtaz died in south and could not be buried in Agra. Also the tomb cannot be above ground level. P.N. Oak also argues that Taj Mahal faces to East like Shiva Mandir. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/819614.cms?headline=Book~documents~'Islamic~holocaust'~in~India Sh. P.N. Oak has written a book that Taj Mahal is a Hindu Temple. This book has been published by Voice of India, 2-Ansari Rd. Delhi, Bharat (India). The Taj Mahal is Tejomahalay, A Hindu Temple, By P.N.Oak Bharat celebrated the 350th anniversary of the fraud by Shah Jahan and other Muslims on Hindu population of Bharat.