An enduring monument of haunting beauty, the Taj Mahal seems a
symbol of stability itself. The familiar view of the glowing marble
mausoleum from the gateway entrance offers the very picture of
permanence. And yet this extraordinary edifice presents a shifting
image to observers across time and cultures. The meaning of the Taj
Mahal, the perceptions and responses it prompts, ideas about the
building and the history that shape them: these form the subject of
Giles Tillotson's book. More than a richly illustrated
history-though it is that as well-this book is an eloquent
meditation on the place of the Taj Mahal in the cultural
imagination of India and the wider world. Since its completion in
1648, the mausoleum commissioned by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah
Jahan, for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, has come to symbolize many
things: the undying love of a man for his wife, the perfection of
Mughal architecture, the ideal synthesis of various strands of
subcontinental aesthetics, even an icon of modern India itself.
Exploring different perspectives brought to the magnificent
structure-by a Mughal court poet, an English Romantic traveler, a
colonial administrator, an architectural historian, or a
contemporary Bollywood filmmaker-this book is an incomparable guide
through the varied and changing ideas inspired by the Taj Mahal,
from its construction to our day. In Tillotson's expert hands, the
story of a seventeenth-century structure in the city of Agra
reveals itself as a story about our own place and time.
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