Quote: (07-04-2017 10:57 AM)911 Wrote:
The case made by the Hare Krishna is not credible. The Taj Mahal was commissioned by a muslim mughal ruler and designed by a muslim architect, and built in a relatively short period. It wasn't a recommissioned building like the Hagia Sofia. It has the hallmarks of islamic architecture: prominent minarets, geometric motifs throughout, prominent calligraphy, lack of human representation, etc.
Also brutal lack of regard for human life, if the legend is correct; it is said Shah Jahan had the hands of all the workers who built the thing cut off after completion so no one would be able to build such a wonder again.
That story is popularly discounted, of course. Less discounted is the account that after completion of the mausoleum, Shah Jahan cut the thumb of the chief architect Ustad Isa (though now it is believed that it is Ustad Ahmad Lahauri was the chief architect). It is quite difficult to draw without the thumb and hence it is practically equivalent to having no hands for a architect.
Or perhaps it's a matter of a translation error: Jahan denied the architect permission to work on any other buildings after the Taj Mahal, to which the architect replied "
Apne toh mere haath hi kaat diye", the literal translation of which is "
you cut my hands, sir"... meaning that by denying him to work anywhere, he took all his ability to work as an architect.
But then I suppose we should be happy this particular Mughal emperor turned to this form of architecture. His forebears, Babar in particular, preferred the architecture of literal towers of Hindu skulls. During one of his slaughters the mass of bodies grew so large that the tent from which Babar watched the killing had to be moved three times.
This is not a legend, I might add; Babar himself proudly records it in his autobiography,
Tuzuk-i-Barburi. It was important that every member of his dynasty appear as a killer of infidels, so he destroyed temples and statues of deities wherever he went.
That tradition (as well as the towers of skulls) was carried down right through to Akbar, supposedly the "greatest" Mughal emperor (and who, incidentally, also brought back the old tradition from Omar's time of forcing unbelievers -- Hindus in this case -- to wear a patch at the shoulder identifying them as such. Those Hindus received the name
tukriya, or "patcher".
Shah Jahan, meanwhile, who was the penultimate Mughal emperor, ordered every Hindu temple and every Christian church he could find torn down. At one point, under his reign, four thousand unbelievers were taken to Agra and tortured in an attempt to have them convert to Islam. Again, these details are recorded by Jahan's chronicler in the
Badshahnama. Generally Jahan demanded that every unbeliever he came across either converted to Islam or was converted to an abject second class status within his realm, if not tortured or murdered. And that's before you get to his son, Aurangzeb, who was a hell of a lot worse.
Remissas, discite, vivet.
God save us from people who mean well. -storm