Shāh Jahān, two years before his union with Arjumand Bāno Bēgam, had been married to a Persian princess, by whom he had a daughter who died young. Five and a half years after his marriage to Arjumand Bāno Bēgam, he espoused a third wife, daughter of Shāh Nawāz Khān, by whom he had a son, who died in infancy. This third marriage was dictated by motives of policy, and did not impair the Emperor's devotion to his favourite consort (Muh. Latīf, Agra, p. 101).
11. The testimony of Tavernier is doubtless correct if understood as referring to the whole complex of buildings connected with the mausoleum. He visited Agra several times. He left India in January, 1654, returning to the country in 1659. Work on the Tāj began in 1632, and so appears to have been completed about the close of, 1653 (Tavernier, Travels, transl. Ball, vol. i, pp. xxi, xxii, 25, 110, 142, 149). The latest dated inscription, that of the calligraphist Amānat Khan at the entrance to the domed mausoleum, was recorded in the twelfth year of the reign, A.H. 1048, equivalent to A.D. 1638-9. That year may be taken as the date of the completion of the mausoleum itself, as distinguished from the great mass of supplementary structures.
12. Various records of the cost differ enormously, apparently because they refer to different things. If all the buildings and the vast value of the materials be included, the highest estimate, namely, four and a half millions of pounds sterling, in round numbers, is not excessive (H.F.A., 1911, p. 415) The figures are recorded with minute accuracy as 411 lākhs, 48,826 rupees, 7 annas, and 6 pies. A karōr (crore) is 100 lākhs, or 10 millions.
13. The enclosure occupies a space of more than forty-two acres.
14. This statement, though commonly made, is erroneous. The building is named the 'assembly house' (jamā'at khāna), or 'guest-house' (mihmān khāna) and was intended as the place for the congregation to assemble before prayers, or on the anniversaries of the deaths of the Emperor Shāh Jahān or his consort. Tāj Mahal (Muh. Latīf, Agra, p. 113). Of course, it also serves as an architectural balance for the mosque.
15. The gardens of the Tāj have been much improved since the author's time, and are now under the care of a skilled European superintendent, and full of beautiful shrubs and trees. The author's measurements of the quadrangle seem to be wrong. Different figures are given by Moīn-ud-dīn (Hist. of the Tāj, p. 29) and Fergusson (ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 313). No official survey is available.
16. The white marble that forms the substance of the building came, Mr. Keene thinks, from Makrāna near Jaipur, but according to Mr. Hacket (Records of the Geographical Survey of India, x. 84), from Raiwāla in Jaipur, near the Alwar border [note]. The account of these marbles given in the Rājputāna Gazetteer, 1st ed. (ii. 127) favours Mr. Keene's view' (N.W.P. Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 707). The ornamental stones used for the inlay work in the Tāj are lapis lazuli, jasper, heliotrope, Chalcedon agate, chalcedony, cornelian, sarde, plasma (or quartz and chlorite), yellow and striped marble, clay slate, and nephrite, or jade (Dr. Voysey, in Asiatic Researches, vol. xv, p. 429, quoted by V. Bail in Records of the Geological Survey of India, vii. 109). Moīn-ud- dīn (pp. 27-9) gives a longer list, from the custodians' Persian account.
17. There is some exaggeration in this statement. Shāh Jahān's concern was with his wife's tomb, and his fortified palaces, more than with 'the cities'.
18. Sleeman's talk about Austin de Bordeaux is wholly based on his misreading of Ustān for Ustād, meaning 'Master', in the Persian account, which names Muhammed-i- Īsā Afandi (Effendi) as the chief designer. He had the title of Ustād, and some versions represent Muhammad Sharīf, the second draughtsman, as his son. Muhammad, the son of Īsā ('Jesus'), apparently was a Turk. He had the Turkish title of 'Effendi', and the Persian MS. used by Moīn- ud-dīn asserts that he came from Turkey. The same authority states that Muhammad Sharīf was a native of Samarkand.
Austin de Bordeaux was wholly distinct from Muhammad-i- Īsā, Ustād Afandi, and there is no reason to suppose that he had anything to do with the Tāj. Sleeman's story about his work at Agra and his death comes from Tavernier (i. 108, transl. Ball: see next note). Austin was in the service of Jahāngīr as early as 1621, and probably came out to India from Persia in 1614. He is described as an engineer (ingénieur), and is recorded to have made a golden throne for Jahāngīr (J.R.A.S., 1910, pp. 494, 1343-5). Sleeman's misreading of ustād as ustān, and his consequent blunders, have misled innumerable writers. In cursive Persian the misreading is easy and natural. He took Ustān as intended for 'Austin'. Certain marks in the garden on the other side of the river indicate the spot where Shāh Jahān had begun work on his own tomb. Aurangzēb, as Tavernier observes, was 'not disposed to complete it' (see A.S.R., iv. 180).