Overview
The Taj Mahal stands on the right bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, northern India, in a walled garden complex (charbagh) measuring roughly 300 by 300 metres. The emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) commissioned it to entomb his favourite wife, Arjumand Banu Begum, titled Mumtaz Mahal ("Chosen One of the Palace"), who died in childbirth in 1631. Construction began about 1632 and was substantially complete by 1643, though finishing work on the garden, outbuildings, and gateway continued for years; the principal architect is traditionally associated with Ustad Ahmad Lahori, working with a corps of masons, calligraphers, and craftsmen from across the empire and beyond.
The mausoleum rises on a raised marble platform with four minarets at the corners and a bulbous double dome surmounted by a gilded finial. Its walls are faced with white Makrana marble inlaid with semiprecious stones in pietra dura floral and geometric patterns — carnelian, jade, lapis lazuli, turquoise — a technique refined at the Mughal court. The interior houses the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan (the actual graves lie in a lower chamber). Flanking the tomb are a red sandstone mosque and an identical jawab (echo building) for symmetry, plus a monumental gateway (darwaza-i rauza) faced with calligraphic Quranic inscriptions that increase in size toward the top, creating an illusion of uniform height.
"Should guilty seek asylum here, like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin. Should a sinner make his way to this mansion, all his past sins are to be washed away."
— Inscription on the Taj Mahal gateway (darwaza-i rauza), paraphrase of Quranic themes
"The building is of rare form, an indescribable perfection — you may speak of a hundred and yet it remains beyond description."
— Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, on the Taj (17th c.)
The Taj is the centrepiece of a broader Mughal landscape at Agra that includes the Agra Fort and, downstream, garden tombs along the Yamuna. British colonial administrators and later the Archaeological Survey of India undertook conservation campaigns; air pollution and river management remain ongoing preservation challenges. UNESCO inscribed the Taj Mahal in 1983; it is widely listed among the modern "Seven Wonders" and consistently ranks at or near the top of global online search volume for heritage monuments.
