Distortion of Indian History For Muslim Appeasement, Part 6E

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It has been mentioned earlier that the so called pseudo secular and Marxist historians of India are projecting the Taj Mahal as a pure example of Islamic architecture and in support of their claim, they highlight four features, e.g (1) the dome, (2) the octagonal base, (3) the angular arch and (4) the four minarets at the four corners of the plinth of the edifice now known as Taj Mahal. They claim that these four features of Taj Mahal are absolutely Islamic. We should recall that Mollah Abdul Hamid Lahori has mentioned in his Badshahnama that the original Rajput palace of Jai Singh, which was later on converted into a mausoleum by Shahjahan, had a spectacular dome at the top of the building (imarat-e-alishan wa gumbaje). Regarding this aspect, P N Oak writes, “The presumption that the dome is a Moslem invention is baseless. To call the dome a Moslem creation amounts to linking it somehow with Prophet Mohammed’s birth. What possible connection could there be  between the dome as an architectural design and the origin of Islam.” [1] It should be mentioned here that the great English architect E B Havell was convinced that the dome is a Hindu constructional form [2].

Regarding the octagonal structure, it should be said that it is a pure Hindu style of architecture and eight sides reprent eight Hindu directions such as Purva (East), Pashchim (West), Uttar (North), Dakshin (South) Ishan (Northeast), Agni (Southeast), Vayu (Northwest), Nairit (Southwest). In fact, Hindu scriptures mention ten directions – the eight directions as given above and the other two are Urdhvah (Zenith) and Adhah (Nadir). According to the historian Arthur Upham Pope, the pointed and trefoil arches, the transverse vault, the octagonal form of building, the dome etc. were originated in India (see below).

It is needless to say that the said pseudo secular and Marxist historians of India derive inspiration from book Monuments of Muslim India by John Marshall, where the author, regarding the Qutb Minar in Delhi , wrote, “The whole conception of the minar and almost every detail of its construction and ornamentations is essentially  Islamic. Towers of this kind were unknown to the Indians, but to the Muhammadans they had long been familiar, whether as mazinas attached to mosques or as free standing towers like those at Ghazni.” [3] As a matter of Fact, the said comment of John Marshall is now being profusely used by the so called secular historians of India to attribute the authorship of the Qutb Minar to Qutb-ud-din. But the reader should recall that in my earlier articles I have shown that minar now known as Qutb Minar, was built by the renowned astronomer Varaha Mihira several centuries before the coming of the Muslim invaders in India , and hence it is excellent piece of pure Hindu architecture.

In this context, it would be relevant to mention the opinion of another historian, A K Saraswati, who wrote, “Arthur Upham Pope has ably demonstrated how Indian (or Hindu) ideas in art and architecture migrated to Western Asia and reached concrete forms under the technical ingenuity of the Persian builders. Indeed, many of the fundamental forms of Persian architecture, such as the pointed and trefoil arches, the transverse vault, the octagonal form of building, the dome etc. were originated in India .  … It is through such cultural contacts that art in the West acquired substance and individuality which the establishment of Islam could hardly change or alter.” [4] So, it becomes evident from the above comment of Arthur Upham Pope that the form and style of architecture, which are now being projected as Islamic or Saracen, are basically Indian or Hindu architecture.

Most of the historians believe that building minarets, including four minarets of Taj Mahal, is an Islamic architecture. But it has been mentioned above that the minarets like Qutb Minar in Delhi and a similar minaret at Ghazni were built by Varaha Mihir several centuries before the arrival of the Muslim invaders. Varaha Mihir built the former with red sandstone with the help of the Rajput artisans while for the latter he used bricks and mortar for want of Rajput builders.[5]. Hence they are pure exhibits of Hindu architecture. Regarding the four towers at the four corners of the Taj Mahal, P N Oak writes, “Blind adherents of the Indo-Saracenic theory of architecture, seem to be unaware, that towers starting at the ground or plinth level like chimneys of brick-kilns, are speciality of the indigenous ancient Hindu architecture. Saracenic minarets begin from the shoulders of the buildings as they do in mosques. And usually such minarets are not hollow from within and have no stairs.” [6] So, the people who are exposing these minarets as Indo-Saracen architecture, should, now on, delete the word Saracen.

In this context, it should be mentioned here that, Giles Tillotson, in his book “Taj Mahal” writes, “The technical know-how to create a building with the structural form of the Taj simply did not exist in pre-Mughal India .” [7] There is no doubt that Mr Tillotson, through this comment, has exposed his colossal ignorance about India and her civilization. It is really amazing that such a half-educated man has attempted to write a book on Taj Mahal and it is more astonishing that a renowned publishing house like “Penguin Books” has come forward to publish this rubbish. Mr Tillotson should know that from very ancient times the architectural engineering, called “Vastu Shastra” in Sanskrit, was a branch of learning and was taught in ancient Indian universities. Mr Tillotson should remember that, when the engineers of India were making planned cities at Mahenjodaro, Harappa , Lothal and in many other places, his ancestors were roaming naked in the forests and eating raw flesh. He should also know that India is the country that has civilized the entire world. Many Western scholars have highlighted this aspect in their writings. I quote below a few of them for his convenience.

Will Durant, the prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher, in his “The Story of Civilization” wrote, “ India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe 's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.” To comment on India ’s contribution to the world, Albert Einstein said, “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.” While praising Indian civilization, George Bernard Shaw once said, “The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creators hand.” 

 J Robert Oppenheimer, the father of nuclear bomb, exclaimed a verse out of Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita after the first Nuclear explosion. He also said, “Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.” There is no doubt that most of the Hindu temples in India are marvels of architecture and were built before the Muslim period. It is needless to say that the temples at Khajuraho are splendid exhibits of architectural engineering. According to the Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia, all these temples were built over a span of 200 years, from 950 to 1150, i.e. well before the arrival of the Muslim invaders. Above all, according to the comment of Arthur Upham Pope, as quoted above, Indian (or Hindu) ideas in art and architecture migrated to Western Asia , now being designated as Islamic. So, it would have been better for Mr Tillotson to write a book on Taj Mahal, after studying the subject a bit more and acquiring proper understanding of Indian or Hindu civilization.

Many believe that the British scholars were aware of the real or Hindu origin of the edifice called Taj Mahal, but they continued to uphold the mythical notion of Shah Jahan’s authorship due to political reasons. But at present, that myth is on the verge of collapse. Discoveries of real history of Taj Mahal in the pages of Badshahnama by P N Oak, Aurangzeb’s letter to Shah Jahan regarding the urgent repair of the building, carbon dating of a piece of wood by the American architect Marvin Mills etc.have served a death blow to the myth of Shah Jahan’s authorship of Taj Mahal. So the British conspirators, who are still active, have engaged Mr Tillotson to thrust a final effort to save that collapsing myth and as a result the half educated Tillotson, perhaps in exchange of a good fortune, undertook to write a book to counter the above mentioned discoveries with foolish, immature and ridiculous arguments. But, there is no doubt that, despite all such efforts of despicable people, truth will come to surface and the story of Shah Jahan’s authorship of Taj Mahal would be thrown into garbage in near future. It has been mentioned earlier that the Google operators are already convinced that, once upon a time, today’s Taj Mahal was a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva.

                 It should be mentioned here that according to a similar conspiracy, the British conspirators have started to glorify M K Gandhi afresh when his image is dwindling in his own country and the people have started to understand the true face of Gandhi. Gandhi was the most trusted and most loyal stooge of the British Empire . And hence he is a symbol of slavery. Gandhi used to maintain the view that India would be benefited by its British connection and it would be a calamity to break the connection between the British people and the people of India . And there is no doubt that due to this unwavering loyalty to the British Crown, he was chosen by the British to bring him back to India from South Africa to lead the freedom movement, or to sabotage the real freedom movement.

It was not difficult for the British to understand that his harmless nonviolent Satyagraha would pose no threat to the British Empire as he used to say, “A Satyagrahi should expect to get killed by an aggressor and not to kill him”. . British in India , at that time, were terribly afraid of violent freedom struggle launched by the patriots of Bengal, Maharastra and Punjab which compelled the British to shift capital from Calcutta to a safer place New Delhi . . But Gandhi, through his speeches and writings, could have managed to expose that he was against any sort of violence in Indian freedom movement.                      

At that historic hour, people of this country saw Sri Gopal Krishna Gokhale to sail to London and visit South Africa on his return journey. He landed at Cape Town on October 22, 1912, and pressed Gandhi to return to India . While in London , Gokhale pleaded to the Prime Minister Mr. Gladstone to repeal the so called Black Act of South Africa, an unjust tax of £3 per Indian, for which Gandhi was then fighting. Mr. Gladstone agreed just to glorify Gandhi. After reaching South Africa , Gokhale, whom Gandhi revered as his political guru, communicated this piece of news to Gandhi and said that he (Gandhi) would have to return to India within a year (according to the plan of his British master).

So, it is needless to say that, so long the people of India continue to follow Gandhi, mentally they would remain slaves to the Western powers and fail to stand on their own foot. And that is reason they have started to glorify Gandhi and revive his legacy of cowardice in the name of nonviolence. It is also as clear as day light that the conspiracy of the British power has led to partitioning of India and creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan . It is also the conspiracy of the British to propagate the myth of the death of Subhas Chandra Bose in a plane crash and it is this British conspiracy that has prevented his entry into independent India , so that the country could be run by their lackeys.

It is also important to mention that the so called secular historians of India , patronized by these lackeys of the West, are distorting Indian history as they like. They are writing that all the most beautiful exhibits of architecture, including the Taj Mahal, have been authored by the Muslim invaders. We have seen earlier that, according to inscriptions of the Munj Bateswar Edict, the building, now called Taj Mahal was built by the King Paramardidev of Bundelkhand in 1156 AD, or nearly 5 centuries before the times of Shah Jahan. Several other evidence support this fact. Vincent Smith writes that Babur, the first Mughal emperor and grandfather of Akbar, died in 1530, in a garden palace in Agra [8]. What that garden palace could be other than the palace complex now called Taj Mahal? “The same palace is described by Babur himself in his Memoirs as the one adorned with a peristyle of pillars and having a dome in the center”, writes P N Oak [9]. So it appears that the building, now called Taj Mahal, was there a century before the death of Shah Jahan’s wife Arjumand Banu.    

However, in this article we would like to discuss another approach by which some scholars have succeeded to prove the Hindu origin of the building now called Taj Mahal. If someone constructs a building today, he would use either of the two systems of measurement of length such as the British system with units like foot, inch, yard etc. or the Metric system with units like meter, centimeter etc. When any of the two systems is used, it is most likely that the dimensions of the plinth and that of other important parts of the building would be integral multiples of the basic units. So, by measuring the dimensions of a building, it is possible to determine the units of length that have been used to construct the building.

Dr R. Balasubramaniam, a Professor in the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, has done commendable research in this direction and in his article “New insights on the modular planning of the Taj Mahal”,  he writes, “Dimensional analysis has revealed that the modular planning of the Taj Mahal Complex  was executed using the traditional measurement units mentioned in the Arthasastra, and, in particular, the vitasti measuring 12 angulams of 1.763 cm. (see Table – I) The riverfront terrace and garden sections of the complex were planned using square grids of 90 vitasti to the side, while the forecourt and caravanserai section using square grids of 60 vitasti to the side. The logical numbers that result for the dimensions have been analyzed to show the ease of division of these numbers into symmetric elements to understand quadratic division of space of the garden area and the triadic division of space of the mausoleum, including decimal divisions. A novel approach to understand the metrology of historical architectural structures of the Indian subcontinent is revealed.” [10]

Table-I

Dr Balasubramaniam  also writes, “The Taj Mahal complex is one of the most visited and well-known archaeological structures of India . This is also one of the wonders of the modern world1. The overall plan of the Taj Mahal complex  reveals that it was planned based on ordering of grids, with the main architectural features of the complex placed on bilateral mirror symmetry along the north–south axis.” We shall discuss this aspect in the next installment.

References:

[1] P N Oak, Tajmahal: The True Story, Published by A Ghosh (1969), p – 170.

[2] E B Havell, Indian Architecture, Ch – XI, as mentioned by P N Oak, ibid, p – 170.

[3] R. C. Majumdar (Gen Ed), History & Culture of the Indian People (in 12 

     Volumes), Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai (1996), VI, 669.

[4] R. C. Majumdar (Gen Ed), ibid, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, VI, 661.

[5] Acharya Vapu Vankar, Itihas Darpan, New Delhi , II, 57.

[6] P N Oak, ibid, p – 172.

[7] Giles Tillotson, Taj Mahal, Penguin Books (2008), p – 113.

[8] V. A. Smith, Akbar the Great Mogul, Oxford Clarendon Press, p-9.

[9] P N Oak, ibid, p – 181.

[10] (http://www.iitk.ac.in/dord/research_news/42.pdf) 

                                                           (To be continued)