On 18 July 2008, Guru Poornima day, a few Shiv Sainiks entered Taj Mahal and tried to perform Pooja. National news channels covered the event. By afternoon, secular governments at Lucknow and New Delhi came into action and by evening the news was blacked out from all the news channels; presumbly under pressure. The news ticker of UNI and PTI was avoided by the national newspapers and except for the local media, the news died down. Here is the story, as to why Shiv Sainiks did it.

On every full moon night a few thousand people assemble on the lawns of an old building at Agra and wait. Exactly at midnight a ray from the moon touches the top portion of the building, hushed tones fall into silence as a lightening appears there. Happiness spreads at this event (“Chamki“ in local folklore and parlance) and people return to watch it happen again the next month. This phenomena is carrying on for almost thousand years or so.

Outer compound wall of red stone has lotus with “Om” etched inside the flowers itself. More than 500 guest rooms, barracks for elephant and horses are visible. Cows are still living near the wall. Bathing ghat touches the compound wall. Drum beater’s place, flowers for worship, underground well, showers, place earmarked for pitching tents is still existing. No one enters the main building with shoes on. Rectangular building has four lamp-posts at each corner. Seven storeyed, white marbled, southward facing main door bears mango leaves and coconut on an eight-metalled pitcher. Eight cornered main building has an unbroken chain of pairs of snakes. Inside, there are 108 Om studded flowers on the walls. The main building has a full pitcher topped with Trishool. The colour of white marble keeps changing every 3 hours or so.

This building is the famous monument we now know as Taj Mahal.

Lord Cunningham found a stone inscription in 1900 during an excavation at Bateshwar which is just 6 Kms from Agra stating that King Parmardidev built such a marble temple of Lord Shiva that even God did not wish to leave it. The stone is at Lucknow Museum now. D.G. Kale in his book “Khajuraho and Epigraphica“, Part I pages 270 -274 has extensive details about it. As per Lord Cunningham, King Parmardidev was alive in 1165 to 1167 A.D. under the reigns of Chandel Kingdom.

Vincent Smith in his book “Akbar the Great Mughal” has described the last days of Babur who lived in this building from 10 May 1526 to 26 December 1530. Babur also arranged a feast here on 11 July 1526. Babur’s daughter Gulbadan Begum has described this building in detail in “Humayunama”. As per the history of Elliot and Dawson, Part 7, pages 5-6, Jehangir died on 27 October 1627 and Shahjahan ascended the throne at Agra on 06 February 1628. “Alamgirnama” of Mohammed Kazim states that Shahjahan became seriously ill on 18 September 1657 bringing to an end his 21 years and 7 months rule in which he fought 48 battles, apart from other military campaigns to suppress mutiny, disobedience in ranks, control riots and other military actions on account of popular agitations due to riots in drought affected areas, etc. Mulla Abdul Hamid Lahori’s “Badshahnama“, Inayat Khan’s “Shahjahanama“, Mohammed Waris’s “Badshahnama“, Mohammed Kambu’s “Amal-e-Salih “ and Mohammed Sadiq Khan’s “Shahjahanama” paint a heart-tearing and pathetic picture of his rule. There was no peace (which is necessary for any constructive activity of this magnitude) due to ongoing military campaigns. Drought of 1630 in Gujrat, South and borders were extremely painful for the population. As soon as the news of his sickness reached, public refused to pay taxes & revolted at many places. His son Dara Sikoh was on the verge of declaring himself the Emperor, Murad Baksh captured the territory of Gujrat, Shuja did the same in Bengal. There was no wave of sympathy for the emperor from any quarters because he was cruel, corrupt, characterless, mean and low man believing in injustice; there was no kindness, pity, large heartedness, intelligence or any sign of greatness in him. Right from Babur to Bahadur Shah Zafar, Shahjahan was the only emperor who was imprisoned by his own son, kept in custody till death and there was not even a murmur of protest because he was not a lover as is being made out to be.

Mirza Gias Baig was a waiter in the court of the emperor of Persia. Jehangir’s heart fell for his beautiful daughter and he made Mirza his Prime Minister. Mirza’s son Khwaja Abdul Hasan and his wife Diwanji Begum gave birth to a daughter named Arjumand Bano in 1594. In 1612 Shahjahan married her. Shahjahan was already married to Sarhandi Begum, the grand daughter of Shah Ismail Safawi of Persia and had already designated her as his Empress. At no point of time in her life, Anjuman Bano became the Queen or Empress of India. Shahjahan married many times after that and also kept concubines. Arjumand Bano was one amongst many of his wives and concubines and died 900 kms away from Agra at a place called Burhanpur on 07 June 1630 as described by Kanwarlal in his book “The Taj”. In her 18 years of married life she gave birth to 14 children out of which 7 survived. No year of her married life passed without her being pregnant. She died after the last delivery. Arjumand Bano was put into the grave at Burhanpur itself and her grave is still existing there.

Arjumand Bano’s death gave Shahjahan an opportunity to snatch away the palace cum temple from Raja Jai Singh through a firman dated 18 December 1633 which is available in the personal cupboard No. 176-77 of Maharaja of Jaipur. “Badshahnama“ of Mulla Abdul Hamid Lahori thus described at pages 402-403 the events of her last rites : “ the palace with greenery at the south end of the town which was known as Raja Man Singh’s palace and was now in the hands of his grand son Raja Jai Singh was chosen for purpose….and 40 lakh rupees was spent on it“.

Jat’s worship Lord Teja ji and the area of Tajganj where Tajmahal is situated has been named after Teja ji. Tejaji’s Mahal was famous as Teja-mahal or Tajmahal long before Shahjahan’s fore-father’s landed at Agra.

As soon as the building came under them, peacock throne was removed and brought into Mogul Durbar, gold railings and golden door-platings, marble-jaali-covers of gold were broken, gold and silver offerings and precious stones kept in the underground well were snatched and became part of his treasury. This loot continued for 16 to 22 years. Sanskrit verses written on the building were removed and replaced with Koranic aayat which end with the words “Small Human Amanat Khan Shirazi wrote it in Hizri 1048 (1639 A.D.) in the 12th year of the rule of the emperor” as described in “A Handbook for visitors to Agra” by Keen. Raja Jaisingh was so distressed with this disfiguring of his ancestral property that inspite of 3 firmans he did not send marbles from his mines at Makrana. Marbles were brought from far off by threatening subordinate kings, subjects worked free, workers were not given wages, those asking for it lost their limbs or hands or simply slaughtered. This cruelty continued till 1648 A.D. as mentioned on the main gate of Tajmahal, when the work was finally completed.

Foreign travellers like Dutch officer Delite, French Travernier, British Peter Mundi have seen it at various dates. In 1652 itself, Tajmahal was found leaking requiring urgent repairs by none other than Prince Aurangzeb as published in Adab-e-Alamgiri, Yadgarnama and edited edition of Murukka-e-Akbarabad, pages 43, note 2. Carbon 14 datings carried out recently prove that Tajmahal was existing atleast 500 years before Shahjahan.

250 years of Moghul rule, 200 years of British rule and secular rule thereafter coupled with fake history curriculum has put such a blinker over our eyes that inspite of the mountains of evidence available to the contrary, we are told day in and day out that Shahjahan built this monument for his beloved Begum Mumtaz Mahal. No doubt, there is utter confusion and details of plan, design, architect, engineers, day to day supervisors, expenditure receipts, people’s contribution, if any, land details, date of commencement of the work and its completion, confusion over every date, etc. can not be logically explained by historians or even by Archaelogical Survey of India. The official chronicle of Shahjahan, which was written on his orders in his Durbar during his rule by his own men, does not claim anywhere that Shahjahan built Tajmahal.

For those who may be interested to know, a marble replica of Tajmahal is also existing south of Vindhya’s at Aurangabad (Maharashtra) and is famous as Biwi ka Makabra.

The truth is that Tajmahal is the only monument in the world on which a Begum changed her name and adopted another after her demise and thus Arjumand Bano became Begum Mumtaz Mahal after her death. Everything else is fake.

When you visit the monument next time, look at the tale tell signs described above, ask yourself and others why the bathing ghat is on western bank of the river, why Taj faces south, why there are 500 guest rooms in a mausoleum, why barracks for elephants and horses are there, why a goshala exists with its boundary, why flowers used in worship are existing, why drum beater’s place is there, why lamp post are called minaret, why flowers have Om into it, why snake pair are on the walls of the white marbled structure; unless this temple - palace was converted into a royal graveyard; also search for the grave of Empress Sarhandi Begum, who is lying with her maid somewhere outside; and reach at your own conclusions.