Taj Mahal

Subject :Art and Culture

Context:Supreme Court directed the Agra Development Authority to stop all commercial activities within a 500 metre radius of the Taj Mahal.

Concept :

About Taj mahal

The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the south bank of the Yamuna river in the city of Agra.
It was commissioned in 1632 by Shah Jahan (reigned from 1628 to 1658) to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself.
The tomb is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall.
The Taj Mahal complex is believed to have been completed in its entirety in 1653 at a cost estimated at the time to be around 32 million rupees, which in 2015 would be approximately 52.8 billion rupees (U.S. $827 million).
The construction project employed some 20,000 artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by the court architect to the emperor, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri.
The Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 for being “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage”.
The Taj Mahal was declared a centrally protected monument of national importance in December 1920.

The architecture of the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal is regarded as one of the greatest architectural achievements in human history. Its design is a synthesis of Islamic, Persian, and Indian architectural traditions.
It was built out of white Makrana marble that was sourced from the Indian state of Rajasthan. To further enhance the beauty of the memorial, thousands of precious and semi-precious gemstones were also incorporated into its design.
The Taj Mahal is perched atop an elevated square plinth that features four minarets standing at each of the four corners of the structure.
The entrance to the building is in the shape of an arch. There are replicas of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal’s sarcophagi located in the main hall of the mausoleum. The actual tombs can be found within a chamber that is locked and located on a lower level.
In the inner chamber, which is in the shape of an octagon, there is jali bordering and quotations from the Quran engraved on the cenotaphs. Additionally, there are intricate decorative details that include twining vines, flowers, and fruits, which are highlighted with 28 different kinds of precious and semiprecious stones.
In accordance with the customs of Islam, the crypts that hold the primary bodies are relatively unadorned, despite the fact that the base and the casket themselves feature intricate designs.

Reasons for deterioration of Taj Mahal:

For over three decades, sulphur dioxide has been considered to be the main pollutant behind the decay in the white marbles of Taj Mahal.
In 2016, the report of the Archaeological Survey of India cited the formation of phosphorous in the Yamuna as a threat to the Taj Mahal. The phosphorous facilitated the breeding of the genus Goeldichironomus, in Yamuna water and blamed the insect excreta for the green and brownish patches on the Taj marbles.
However, a recent study highlights one more reason-
- It identifies Hydrogen Sulphide released from polluted Yamuna water for deterioration of Taj Mahal
- Hydrogen Sulphide had a more corrosive impact than sulphur dioxide (SO₂) released by industrial pollution in Agra city.

Damage caused by insects

Apart from harmful emissions from industries and vehicles, the Taj Mahal has also become discoloured due to contamination of the Yamuna, which has resulted in a loss of aquatic life, leading to insect and algae infestation of monuments situated on the river-bank.
Since the 1970s, there have been growing concerns that emissions from industries near the Taj Mahal are causing its once-gleaming white marble surface to discolour, turning it yellow and black in some places. In order to protect the monument from pollution, the central government had demarcated an area of 10,400 sq km around the Taj, called the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ).
MC Mehta vs Union of India: The environmentalist MC Mehta drew attention of the SC to the yellowing and blackening of the Taj marbles in several places, suspected to have been a result of ‘acid rains’ caused by sulphur dioxide emissions.It found that the nearby coke/coal consuming industries were damaging the monument and the people living in the TTZ. It also directed the 292 industries operating in the zone to switch to natural gas as industrial-fuel, or relocate from their area.