Architecture

The religious landscape of India, and indeed large portions of southeast Asia, was dramatically changed with the spread of Detail of the sculptured gate of the Great Stupa at Sanchi, India. Constructed sometime between 273 and 236 B.C.E., the Great Stupa is one of the few surviving examples of original Buddhist architecture. Stupas were built to commemorate the deeds of Buddha, and some are said to enshrine his mortal remains. © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO, S.A./CORBIS India's Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, represents a shining example of Asian architecture during the Mughal dynasty. Constructed as a tomb to honor Shah Jahan's deceased wife, the building displays harmonious proportions and a purity of design. © SUSAN D. ROCK Islam from the west. Islamic armies of the Turks and Afghans conquered northern India in the late twelfth century, and an independent Islamic state was declared there in 1206. Mosque building now took the place of temple building, revealing a fundamental difference in the concept of the religious building. Whereas the Hindu temple was a vertical point marker in space, its interior densely enclosed, dark, mysteriously introvert, the mosque in contrast (inspired by the court of the prophet Muhammad's house in Mecca) was open to the sky, a public gathering place for prayer, extrovert. The introduction of Islam in Hindu India set up a fundamental conflict that still continues, after eight centuries, to generate intense clashes and to cause bloodshed.

By about 1500 this Islamic empire was enlarged by Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty, to extend from Afghanistan to Bengal. By this time a distinctive north Indian Islamic culture had emerged, with Islam established as the official religion, but with later Mughal emperors such as Akbar and Shah Jahan fostering a broader cultural tolerance. Where the teaching of Islam held firm, however, was in the elimination of figural sculpture from sacred buildings (although figural painting was practiced separately). Gardens, mirroring the Koranic descriptions of paradise, became a design specialty of the Mughals.

For many observers, the pinnacle of Mughal architecture was reached with the creation of a striking white marble tomb, the Taj Mahal, built by the bereft emperor Shah Jahan on the banks of Jumna River near Agra, Uttar Pradesh, to honor his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth. Begun around 1631, the building itself was finished in six years, while the garden and adjoining buildings were completed in 1643. Bounded by a wall punctuated by a large entry gate on the southern edge is a broad square garden laid out in a precise grid, with channels of water on the axes (symbolic of the rivers of paradise) converging on a slightly elevated pool in the center. Lawns and planted beds fill the four quadrangles; originally intended to have different plants producing flowers continuously during the cycle of the seasons, the flower beds were framed by fruit trees. No literate Mughal entering the garden could fail to appreciate the images of paradise that informed every aspect of the design, for over the entry gate, written out in black marble inlay in a white marble band, is this passage from the Koran:

But Oh thou soul at peace,
Return thou unto thy Lord, well-pleased, and well-pleasing unto Him,
Enter thou among thy servants,
And enter thou My paradise.

At the northern edge, on a raised platform is the white domed tomb, a masterwork conceived by the Shah's architects, Ustad Ahmed Lahori and Ahb al-Karim Ma mur Kahn, aided by the court calligrapher Amanat Khan. The square mass of the central building is a symbol of calm and harmony, for it is exactly as high as it is wide, and the height of the dome is exactly the same as that of the arched entry block. The white marble mass of the building is embellished everywhere with representations of the flowers of paradise, crafted of inlays of jade, lapis, amber, carnelian, jasper, amethyst, agate, heliotrope, and green beryl. In addition to the flower and geometrical ornamental inlays, black marble inlay everywhere presents passages from the Koran that relate to paradise on the Day of Judgment. In its purity of material and its balance of proportions, the Taj Mahal serves as a fitting representation of paradise.