"A white marble tomb built in 1631-48 in Agra, seat of the Mugal Empire, by Shah Jehan for his

wife, Arjuman Banu Begum, the monument sums up many of the formal themes that have played through Islamic architecture. Its refined elegance is a conspicuous contrast both to the Hindu architecture of pre-Islamic India, with its thick walls, corbeled arches, and heavy lintels, and to the Indo-Islamic styles, in which Hindu elements are combined with an eclectic assortment of motifs from Persian and Turkish sources."Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism. p223. "The Mausoleum of the Taj Mahal at Agra stands in a formally laid-out walled garden entered through a pavilion on the main axis. The tomb, raised on a terrace and first seen reflected in the central canal, is entirely sheathed in marble, but the mosque and counter-mosque on the transverse axis are built in red sandstone. The four minarets, set symmetrically about the tomb, are scaled down to heighten the effect of the dominant, slightly bulbous dome. The mosques, built only to balance the composition are set sufficiently far away to do no more than frame the mausoleum. In essence, the whole riverside platform is a mosque courtyard with a tomb at its centre. The great entrance gate with its domed central chamber, set at the end of the long watercourse, would in any other setting be monumental in its own right.""The interior of the building is dimly lit through pierced marble lattices and contains a virtuoso display of carved marble. Externally the building gains an ethereal quality from its marble facings, which respond with extraordinary subtlety to changing light and weather." Taj Mahal is an ambassador of Shah Jahan's strong
interest in building and artistic innovations. The new architectural style includes aspects that were to impinge much of subsequent Indian architecture. Symmetry along two sides of a central axis, new columnar styles, curvilinear forms, and symbolic decorations based on naturalistic plant motifs are all characteristics of the Shahjahan style that can be found in the Taj Mahal Complex. The mausoleum is entirely clad in white marble. Alluding

to the stone's luminosity, the Mughal poets compared it to early dawn or to a cloud. Kalim wrote: It is a [piece of] heaven of the colour of dawn's bright face, because from top to bottom and inside out it is of marble - Nay, not marble because of its translucent colour (av-urang) The eye can mistake it for a cloud. Kanbo refers to the illurruned tomb (rauza-i-munauwara) on whos every stone slab from early morning until late evening the whiteness of the true dawn is reflected, causing the viewer to forget his desire to move towards the highest heaven. In the Taj Mahal, the hierarchical use of red sandstone and white marble contributes manifold symbollic significance. The Mughals were elaborating on a concept which traced its roots to earlier Hindu practices, set out in the Vishnudharmottara Purana, which recommended white stone for buildings for the Brahmins (priestly caste) and red stone for members of the Kshatriyas (warrior caste). By building structures that employed such colour coding, the Mughals identified themselves with the two leading classes of Indian social structure and thus defined themselves as rulers in Indian terms. Red sandstone also had significance in the Persian origins of the Mughal Empire, where red was the exclusive colour of imperial tents. Sound was also used to express ideas of paradise. The interior of the mausoleum has a reverberation time (the time taken from when a noise is made until all of its echoes have died away) of 28 seconds providing an atmosphere where the words of the Hafiz, as they prayed for the soul of Mumtaz, would linger in the air. One type of column, called the Shahjahani column is used in the entire complex. It has a multi-faceted shaft, a capital builtup from miniature arches, concave elements and a base with four multi-cusped arched panels.Proportions and details of the columns vary according to their position in the complex; simplest in the bazaar streets, larger and richer in the funerary area. The flanking buildings; the mosque and mihman khana [Guest House meant only for assembling for prayers] share mirror symmetry and display less naturalistic and less refined ornament; in the garden buildings, it is used only sparingly; and none appears in the Jilaukhana or the bazaar and caravanserai complex. The chief building of the entire complex is the mausoleum and the most naturalistic decoration appears here.