Taj has inspired poets and has form a lasting
impression on many intellectuals. However, it has found some critics
too. Here, we have brought some beautiful lines on Taj from the records:
Shah Jahan in Badshah Nama:
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs And makes sun and
moon shed tears from their eyes In this world this edifice has been made
To display thereby the Creator's glory.
The British painter Hodges in 1783:
It appears like a perfect pearl on an azure ground. The effect is such
I have never experienced from any work of art.
English often used Taj as a pleasure resort and its gardens as a
romantic getaway. Dances were arranged on its terrace and the mosque and
the jawab were rented out to newly-wed couples.
The American novelist and journalist Bayard Taylor wrote:
So pure, so gloriously perfect did it appear that I almost feared to
approach it lest the charm should be broken.
The poet Rabindranath Tagore said:
You knew Shah Jahan, life and youth, wealth and glory, they all
drift away in the current of time. You strove therefore, to perpetuate
only the sorrow of your heart…Let the splendour of diamond, pearl
and ruby vanish…Only let this one teardrop, this Taj Mahal, glisten
spotlessly bright on the cheek of time, forever and ever.
E. B. Havell wrote:
Taj is India's noble tribute to the grace of Indian Womanhood.
W. H. Russell:
Taj is a dream in marble … a thought, an idea, a conception of
tenderness, a sign of eternal devotion and heroic love.
The Nobel prizewinner English author Rudyard kipling wrote:
It seemed the embodiment of all things pure; all things holy and all
things unhappy. That was the mystery of the building. It may be that the
mist wrought the witchery.
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