Taj Mahal - Orismetara, mauzolej izgleda velik. Smanjuje se kako mu se pribli-žavate, povećava kad ga napuštate. Kažu, što potvrđujem, da ga nosimo u srcu sve većeg i većeg

244 245Joško Belamarić, TravelogueJoško Belamarić, PutopisTaj Mahal, IndiaTaj Mahal, Indija

Ukoliko Raj postoji na Zemlji, on je Ovdje, on je Ovdje, on je Ovdje!

¶ Moguli su vladali Indijom od 1526. do 1858. i bijahu među najsilnijim i najbogatijim dinastijama u svjetskoj povijesti pa ne čudi što je pojam ostao metaforom za moćnike (da bi ga tek nedavno istisnuo pojam tajkun, japanska riječ za velikog zapo-vjednika, šoguna). Godine 1608. Khurrama – sina mogulskog vladara Džahangira – na njegov su 16. lunarni rođendan posjeli na vagu i izmjerili suhim zlatom. Radi vojnih uspjeha ubrzo će steći ime šah Džahan – na perzijskom slava svijeta. Još 1607. princ se zaručio za Arjumand Banu Begum plemenitog perzij-skog roda. Ona će dobiti ime Mumtaz Mahal (izabranica palače). Kada je 1628. postao vladarom najvećeg dijela potkontinenta pod Himalajom, s njom je već imao dvanaestero djece. No 1631. Mumtaz Mahal umrla je od postpartalne hemoragije, nakon

Taj Mahal

Taj Mahal

Joško Belamarić

napisao written by

Joško Belamarić (jb) Muzej Taj Mahal / Taj Museum (tm)Sveučilište Columbia / Columbia University (sc)Muzej Nelson-Atkins / Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (nam)Muzej Metropolitan / Metropolitan Museum of Art (mm)

fotografije photographs by

246 247oris, number 84, year 2013 Joško Belamarić, TravelogueJoško Belamarić, Putopisoris, broj 84, godina 2013

tridesetsatnog porađanja četrnaestog djeteta. Samo šest mje-seci poslije šah Džahan počeo je s gradnjom najvećeg spomenika koji je ikada jedan čovjek podigao vlastitoj supruzi. Bile su anga-žirane trupe specijaliziranih majstora iz čitavog Carstva. Sve je podignuto rekordnom brzinom i uz iznimne troškove.Pogled na ovo zdanje stvara žalobne prizore; I sunce i mjesec liju suze iz očiju. Na ovom svijetu ovo zadnje je građeno; Da time pokaže slavu stvoritelja.¶ Stihovi su to samog šaha Džahana koji nam otkrivaju da je, povrh neutješne tuge, na gradnju bio potaknut standardnim vladarskim motivima. Građevine nadljudskih dimenzija sugeri-raju da isti takav značaj imaju i njihovi graditelji. Zamašnost gradnje postaje vrlina po sebi, a mravinjak na gradilištu spektakl poput igara. To je samo drugi način na koji se prikazuje carska magnificentia. Sve to kao topos, primjenjiv u svim vremenima, sažima rimski kasnoantički pisac Vegecije: Tvoja je Pobožnost neprekidnim radom nebrojene gradove dovršila, tako da se ne čini da ih je sagradila ljudska ruka, već da su niknuli Božjim migom. ¶ Najveće umijeće zahtijevalo je već temeljenje plat-forme poviše rijeke Jumne (Yamuna). Na visokoj plinti izgrađeni su mauzolej s četiri minareta na uglovima te s lijeve i desne strane, džamija i gostinjac. Iz začudo nevelikog korpusa teorije islamske arhitekture dade se razumjeti da su arhitekti i inače posebnu pažnju prvenstveno posvećivali temeljenju građevina. Arhitekt mora izbjeći bilo kakvo požurivanje u rješavanju zahtjeva koje postavlja građevina, osobito onih koji se tiču njene

If there is a Paradise on Earth, it is Here, it is Here, it is Here!

¶ The Mughals, who ruled India from 1526 to 1858, were among the most violent and richest dynasties in the history of the world, so it is no wonder their name has remained a metaphor for powerful rulers (only recently replaced by the term tycoon, a Japanese word for a great leader, the shogun). In 1608, on his 16th lunar birthday, Khurram, the son of the great Mughal ruler Jahangir, was seated on a pair of scales and measured in gold. Owing to his war victories he would soon be called Shah Jahan, which in Persian means Glory of the World. He was engaged to be married in 1607 to Arjumand Banu Begum, a noble princess of the Persian origin. She would soon be named Mumtaz Mahal (The Chosen One of the Palace). When he became the ruler of the largest part of the subcontinent at the foot of the Hima-layas in 1628, they already had twelve children. But, Mumtaz Mahal died as early as 1631 of postpartum hemorrhage, after thirty hours of labor with her fourteenth child. Only six months later Shah Jahan began constructing the largest monument any man had ever erected to his wife. Troupes of specialized crafts-men from the entire Empire were working on the complex. All was done in record time and at excessive costs.The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs; And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes. In this world this edifice has been made; To display thereby the creator’s glory.¶ These are the verses by Shah Jahan himself, which reveal that apart inconsolable sorrow, he was also motivated to build the Taj Mahal by the standards of ruling. Buildings of superhuman dimensions suggest the same significance of their builders. The greatness of the construction became a virtue in itself, and the anthill at the construction site was a spectacle, like festivals. This was just a different way of presenting the imperial mag-nificentia. All this as a topos applicable for all times is summed up by the Roman writer from the late Antiquity, Vegetius: Your piety and continual work completed numerous cities, so much so that they seem not to have been built by the hand of a man, but that they have sprung by the wink of God. ¶ The greatest craft was already necessary to build the foundations on the platform above the Yamuna River. On a high plinth they built a mausoleum with four minarets on the corners, and on the left and right a mosque and a resting place. From a surprisingly small corpus of the theory of Islamic architecture, we under-stand that the architects paid special attention primarily to the foundations of buildings. The architect should avoid any rush in resolving requirements imposed by the building, especially those concerning static calculations – in accordance with the

statike – sukladno izreci da strpljenje nosi pobjedu, u potrazi za Božjom vodiljom prema besmrtnosti djela, uz pomoć Boga, kaže Mimar Sinan u jednom od svojih autobiografskih eseja. Arhitekt, ma tko to bio, ovdje se domislio izvanrednom rješenju. Čitavu površinu (300 x 112 m) pretvorio je u sustav bunara dubljih od korita rijeke. U njih je utrpano kamenje i žbuka, a na njima su uspostavljeni redovi stupova povezani lukovima, odnosno svo-dovljem. Na sve je položena mramorna podnica. Jumna danas lijeno meandrira ravnicom kojom se rasprostrla Agra, ali mjese-čevi vrtovi na suprotnoj obali nose tragove nekadašnjih izlijeva-nja rijeke i pokazuju zbog čega tolika pažnja u projektiranju platforme na kojoj je izgrađen mauzolej. Gradnja platforme i same grobnice trajala je dvanaestak godina, a čitav kompleks dovršen je 1650.-ih godina. O podrijetlu građe (bijeli mramor iz Radžastana, jaspis iz Punjaba, žad i kristal iz Kine, tirkiz iz Tibeta, lapis lazuli iz Afganistana, safir iz Šri Lanke, karneol iz Arabije…) te o broju radne snage i danas se raspredaju legende. ¶ Dugo

saying that patience brings victory, in search of the divine guid-ance towards the immortal work, with God willing, said Mimar Sinan in one of his autobiographical essays. The architect, regardless of who it was, came up with an extraordinary solu-tion here. The entire surface (300 x 112 m) was turned into a system of wells deeper than the river bed. Stones and mortar were deposited in order to establish rows of pillars connected with arches, that is, vaults. It carries the marble floor structure. Today, Yamuna meanders lazily through the Agra plane, but the moonlight gardens on the other side of the river bear traces of previous flooding and show why such attention was given to the design of the platform on which the mausoleum was built. The construction of the platform and the tomb itself lasted about 12 years, and the entire complex was finished in the 1650s. The origin of the building material (white marble from Rajasthan, jasper from Punjab, jade and crystal from China, turquoise from Tibet, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, sapphire

Pogled na Taj preko velikog oktogonalnog bazena koji je obrubljen obrascem šiljatih lukova, sa suprotne obale rijeke Jumne

View of the Taj from the opposite bank of the Yamuna River. The large octagonal pool with a pattern of multi-cusped arches in close-up

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Jedan od novih hotela u Agri

One of the new hotels in Agra

Hamajunov mauzolej u Delhiju, 1562. – 1571.

Hamayun’s Tomb in Delhi, 1562 – 1571

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očekivani susret s Taj Mahalom doživjet ćete u znaku prvog od optičkih trikova kojima će vas osvojiti: sniježno bijel, uokviren golemim vratima od crvenog pješčenjaka visokim gotovo 30 metara, mauzolej izgleda velik. Smanjuje se kako mu se pribli-žavate, povećava kad ga napuštate. Kažu, što potvrđujem, da ga nosimo u srcu sve većeg i većeg. The most beloved building in the world godišnje privlači od dva do četiri milijuna turista, ali vreva vam neće smetati u doživljaju. ¶ Na četiri ugla plinte nalaze se minareti visoki preko 40 metara. Izgrađeni su s blagom inkli-nacijom prema van kako bi u pogledu iz vrta proizveli perspek-tivni učinak posve okomitih tornjeva, a u slučaju potresa pali u stranu od mauzoleja. Bilateralna i radijalna simetrija provedena je od kompozicije u cjelini pa do najsitnijeg detalja, u pažljivom hijerarhijskom gradiranju oblika, boja, materijala. O tome naj-rječitije govore zgrade gotovo identična oblika građene od

crvenog pješčenjaka na dva suprotna kraja platforme, s mauzo-lejom kao škrinjom s dragocjenostima u središtu. Zapadno je džamija, a istočno džavab (odgovor) – gostinjac kojemu nedo-staje jedino mihrab (niša u unutrašnjosti koja predstavlja smjer Meke) da bude džamija. ¶ Jasno razumijemo kolorističku shemu kompleksa: bijeli mramor (koji je zaodjenuo milijune golemih opeka) rezerviran je za najdragocjenije oblike kojima se iskazuje vjera i duhovnost, vladarska aura. Riječ je o fabuloznom mra-moru iz kava u Makrani u Radžastanu, 400 km udaljenim od Agre, kojemu je slavu pronio upravo Taj, pa se otud kasnije našao i na građevinama kao što su Bijela kuća u Washingtonu, Empire State Building, Buckinghamska palača, Westminster Abbey i Marble Arch u Londonu, Sydney Opera House… Najveća prijetnja Taj Mahalu danas su zagađena rijeka Jumna i kisele kiše zbog blizine naftne rafinerije Mathura koja je konačno uklonjena odlu-kom indijskih vlasti. Onečišćenje zraka pretvaralo je Taj Mahal iz bijelog u žuto. ¶ Naravno, s pravom se analizira genealogija rješenja ranijih mogulskih mauzoleja koja su vodila projektu Taja,

from Sri Lanka, carnelian from Arabia …), as well as the number of workers, is still the source of many legends. ¶ A long-awaited meeting with the Taj Mahal will be overcome by optical tricks that will fascinate you: snowy white, framed with huge doors made of red sandstone, almost 30 m high, the mausoleum seems large. It seems to decrease in size as you approach it, and increase as you move away from it. They say, and I confirm, that we carry it in our hearts where it gets bigger and bigger. The most beloved building in the world attracts annually two to four million tourists, but the crowd will not diminish your experience. ¶ The four corners of the plinth house the minarets, over 40 m tall. They were built with a slight outward inclination to create an effect of vertical towers visible from the garden, but also to fall away from the mausoleum in case of an earth-quake. The bilateral and radial symmetry was achieved in the total composition as well as in the smallest detail, with a care-ful hierarchal gradation of shapes, colors and materials. This is immediately visible on the buildings of almost identical shape made of red sandstone located on the two opposite sides of the platform, with the mausoleum as a treasure chest in the middle. To the west there is a mosque, to the east a jawab

(response), a resting place, lacking only a mihrab (an inner niche indicating the direction of Mecca) to be a mosque. ¶ The color scheme of the complex is very transparent: the white marble (coating millions of large bricks) is reserved for the most pre-cious shapes representing faith and spirituality, the ruling aura.

Sniježno bijel, uokviren golemim vratima od crvenog pješčenjaka, mauzolej izgleda velik. Smanjuje se kako mu se približavate, povećava kad ga napuštate Snowy white, framed with huge doors made of red sandstone, the mauso-leum seems large. It seems to decrease in size as you approach it, and increase as you move away from it

Plan sklopa s oznakama za glavne dijelove na

perzijskom jeziku, 18. – 19. st.

Plan of the Taj Mahal complex

with indicating main buildings in Persian,

18th – 19th century

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Taj Mahal site plan

Tlocrt Taj Mahala

Agra, Crvena tvrđava (građena nakon 1556.), velika dvorana za primanje

Agra, The Red Fort (built after 1556), the large reception hall

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Biserna džamija, Agra Fort, akvarel (oko 1808. – 1820.)

The Pearl Mosque, the Agra Fort, watercolour, around 1808 – 1820

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pri čemu se u razmatranje kao mogući prototip osobito često uzima elegantni mauzolej cara Hamajuna (1565. – 1570.), pra-djeda šaha Džahana, koji se danas nalazi usred Delhija. Bila je to prva grobnica na indijskom potkontinentu izgrađena u središtu širokog vrtnog partera komponiranog poput karakterističnih perzijskih charbagh vrtova, pravokutnih ili kvadratnih, izdijelje-nih na četiri dijela šetnicama ili kanalima vode. Mauzolej je podi-gnut od crvenog pješčenjaka na platformi oblikovanog od niza arkada. Središnju os snažno naglašava golemi ulazni hol (Iwan) nad kojim se diže kupola. U oktogonalnom središnjem prostoru nalaze se kenotafi Humajuna i njegove supruge, dočim su stvarni grobovi u kripti. Prolazi koji povezuju središnji prostor s okolnim dvoranama i deambulatorij koji omogućuje kretanje ukrug (na način koji je ranije bio svojstven prije svega islamskom štovanju grobova svetaca) te skošeni uglovi mauzoleja i radijalno sime-trični raspored osam dvorana (aludirajući na osam rajeva) koje komuniciraju sa središnjim prostorom – sve su to elementi koji će svoju savršenu razradu dobiti u Taj Mahalu. ¶ Taj Mahal se, međutim, može razumjeti samo u okviru širokog graditeljskog programa kojega se prihvatio šah Džahan još prije nego je

uzašao na tron (počevši od obnove tvrđave u Kabulu, potom onih u Gwalioru, Lahoreu i Agri) jer većeg graditelja od njega u nizu mogulskih careva nije bilo. Pripisuje mu se oblikovanje 777 vrtova u Kašmiru (u kojemu je najradije boravio tijekom ljeta), a još smo daleko od cjelovitog dokumentiranja i analiziranja tipo-logije svih palača (ne manje od 50) te lovačkih zamaka i vrtnih rezidencija različitih veličina koje je podigao diljem Indije. Naj-veća je to skupina takvih građevina u islamskom svijetu, a vje-rojatno i uopće. Austrijska povjesničarka arhitekture Ebba Koch tijekom posljednjih tridesetak godina uspjela je formirati preli-minarni korpus od tek 24 palače i vrtne rezidencije iz razdoblja vladavine šaha Džahana. Neki od tih projekata, poput gradnje Crvene tvrđave u njegovoj novoj prijestolnici Shahjahanabadu, podignutoj pored šest ranijih gradova Delhija, mjerilom i utroš-kom prelaze sve ostale, ali nijedan ne nadilazi sjaj Taj Mahala. Temelji Shahjahanabada (današnji Old Delhi), racionalno projek-tiranog dvorskog grada s tri paralelne avenije ispresijecane vodenim kanalima, položeni su 29. travnja 1639. Bio je to mogul-ski odgovor netom izgrađenom Chahar Bagh bulevaru, ulicama i vrtovima u safavidskom Isfahanu. Kompetitivnost islamske

It is the fabulous marble from quarries in Makrana in Rajasthan, situated 400 km from Agra, which became famous owing to the Taj and was later used on the buildings, such as the White House in Washington and the Empire State Building, the Buck-ingham Palace, the Westminster Abbey and the Marble Arch in London, the Sydney Opera House … The greatest threat to the Taj Mahal today is the pollution of the Yamuna River and the acid rain due to proximity of the oil refinery Mathura that was finally relocated by the decision of the Indian Government. The pollution was turning the white marble of the Taj Mahal yellow. ¶ Naturally, the genealogy of the earlier Mughal mau-soleum solutions has rightfully been analyzed and the potential prototype is often considered to be the elegant mausoleum of the Emperor Humayun (1565–70), the great-grandfather of Shah Jahan, today standing in the center of Delhi. It was the first tomb on the Indian subcontinent built in the middle of a wide garden space and composed like a typical Persian Char-bagh garden, square or rectangular in layout, divided into four sections by paths or water canals. The mausoleum itself is made of red sandstone on a platform formed by a series of

arcades. The central axis is strongly emphasized with a huge entrance chamber (Iwan) arched with a dome. The octagonal central space contains the cenotaphs of Humayun and his wife, while the actual tombs are in the crypt. Passageways connect-ing the central chamber with the surrounding halls, the ambu-latory enabling circular motion (primarily typical of earlier Islamic respect of the saint’s graves), as well as the slanted corners of the mausoleum and the radially symmetric layout of the eight halls (implying the eight paradises) which com-municate with the central chamber – all these are elements that would be perfectly developed in the Taj Mahal. ¶ However, the Taj Mahal can be understood only in a wider framework of construction program undertaken by Shah Jahan before he took over the throne (beginning from the reconstruction of the fortress in Kabul, to those in Gwalior, Lahore and Agra), because there was no greater builder among many Mughal emperors. He is also said to have shaped 777 gardens in Kashmir (where he liked to spend his summers), but this is not the entire list and analysis of the typology of all palaces (at least 50), hunting temples and garden residences of various sizes that he erected throughout India. This is the largest group of such buildings in the Islamic world, and probably in general. Over the last thirty years, Austrian historian of architecture, Ebba Koch, has managed to form a preliminary corpus of only 24 palaces and garden residences from Shah Jahan’s period. Some of the projects, such as the Red Fort in his new capital

Pogled prema Velikim vratima s terase mauzoleja

View of the Great Gate from the terrace

of the mausoleum

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Arkade ulice bazara

Arcades of the bazaar street

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Vanjsko pročelje zapadnih vrata

The outer façade of the west gate


Shahjahanabad, erected near six earlier Delhi cities, surpass all others in size and cost, but none of them surpasses the glam-our of the Taj Mahal. The foundations of Shahjahanaban (today’s Old Delhi), a rationally designed temple city with three parallel avenues crisscrossed with water canals, were laid on April 29, 1639. It was a Mughal-like response to the recently built Chahar Bagh Boulevard, streets and gardens in the Safavid Isfahan. The competitiveness of the Islamic architecture was and has remained one of its permanent fixations. During one of his receptions, the Shah requested the Persian emissary to compare the two cities, and he replied: Isfahan is not worthy of the Delhi dust. It was no doubt an ambiguous response, con-sidering that dust in Delhi is the same today as the air you breathe. ¶ At a silken dawn on a spring day, looking from the gardens on the opposite side of the Yamuna River that stops meandering in the morning dew and sticks together like mer-cury, the Taj Mahal’s dome seems white as a goat’s milk. The entire image shall gradually shift in a series of unbelievable colorist transformations – until the next night when this same dome, especially under the full moon, becomes a living body, like a new planet. Still, in order to get to that belvedere, you will have to pass the mahala at dawn, where under the open sky the primordial physiological processes, human and animal alike, begin to stir together. It seems, however, that the same optics was shared by the first Mughal rulers, starting with genius Babur (1526–30), who stopped before the dry planes of the Northern India, between Indus and the Ganges, to choose the location for his capital, and concluded with indigna-tion: Soon after I came to Agra, I crossed to the other side of the Yamuna River to view the landscape and to choose a place suitable for a garden. Everything was so despicably ugly that I crossed the river again, completely aghast. Due to the lack of beauty and an unpleasant appearance of the landscape, I gave up the intention to build a charbagh. In the end, however, since there were no more suitable sites near Agra, I had to do the best I could on this site. ¶ The Mughal rulers – starting with Babur – built a series of gardens, first in front of the citadels and fortified palaces of the pre-Mughal rulers, as an expression of power over the parched Indian landscape. Those were truly the royal symbols of territorial control, but also a metaphor of a paradise on earth – in unpleasant and disharmonious India. The shores of the Yamuna River will soon be framed by tens of such garden complexes. The ground plan of Agra from the 1720s (the city which at its peak had 700,000 inhabitants) indicates that there will be forty four of them. The Taj Mahal should, therefore, be viewed in this larger urban context. ¶ Fur-thermore, if we look at the ground plan, we will understand it

originally spread on the area twice as large. Namely, not many visitors are aware that the integral part of the plan included also the now chaotic part of the city, the Taj Ganj, still contain-ing all the elements of the garden composition in front of the mausoleum. Here, it is in the form of crisscrossed bazaar streets, with silk and spice markets… and parts reserved for caravanserais. It is, as Ebba Koch underlines, a uniquely and highly creative transfer of the charbagh scheme to the com-plex of extremely utilitarian civic architecture. Let us be clear: these two zones – the representative, holy, ceremonial, sepul-chral, indoctrinating and symbolic, on the one side, and the worldly, commercial, pecuniary, on the other, refer to the Islamic concept of the balanced spiritual and material world.

Agra, Mauzolej Itimada-ud-Daulaha

(1622. – 1628.)

Agra, the Mausoleum of Itimad-ud-Daula

(1622 – 1628)

Taj Mahal, natpisi iz Kurana na arapskom

jeziku izvedeni u crnom mramoru

Taj Mahal, Arabic inscriptions from

Quran in black marble

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Agra, Mauzolej Itimada-ud-Daulaha s inkrustacijama od poludragog kamena

Agra, The Mausoleum of Itimad-ud-Daula with incrustations of semi-precious stones

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Jal Mahal na jezeru Man Sagar u Jaipuru

Jal Mahal Palace on the Man Sagar Lake in Jaipur


arhitekture bila je i ostala jedna od njenih trajnih fiksacija. Za vrijeme jedne audijencije šah je tako od perzijskog poslanika tražio da usporedi dva grada, a ovaj je odgovorio: Isfahan nije dostojan ni delhijske prašine. Zacijelo dvosmislen odgovor, s obzirom na to da je prašina u Delhiju i danas isto što i zrak koji dišete. ¶ U svili svitanja proljetnoga dana, u pogledu iz vrtova sa suprotne obale Jumne koja u jutarnjoj sláni prestaje vijugati, nego se stisne poput žive, kupola Taj Mahala pomoli se prvo obrisom boje kozjeg mlijeka. Čitava slika postupno će se pokre-nuti u nizu nevjerojatnih kolorističkih pretvorbi – do sljedeće noći kada će ta ista kupola, naročito pod punim mjesecom, postati tijelo živo poput nekog novog planeta. No da biste stigli do tog belvedera, morat ćete u praskozorje proći kroz mahalu u kojoj se pod otvorenim nebom u to doba pokreću primordijalni fiziološki procesi, ljudski i životinjski, bez odvajanja. Čini se, međutim, da su istu optiku imali i prvi mogulski vladari, počevši od genijalnog Babura (1526. – 1530.), koji je zastao pred suhim ravnicama sjeverne Indije, između Inda i Gangesa, birajući mjesto za svoju prijestolnicu, da bi gotovo indignirano zaključio: Malo nakon što sam došao u Agru prešao sam na drugu stranu Jumne

da razmotrim krajolik i izaberem mjesto podesno za vrt. Bijaše sve toliko odvratno ružno da sam ponovno prešao rijeku, posve zgađen. Zbog nedostatka ljepote i neprijatna izgleda krajobraza odustao sam od namjere da napravim charbagh. Na koncu ipak, budući da kraj Agre nije bilo pogodnijeg položaja, bio sam pri-moran da načinim najbolje što se moglo na tom mjestu. Mogul-ski vladari – počevši od Babura – podigli su niz vrtova, ispočetka baš nasuprot citadela i utvrđenih palača predmogulskih vladara, kao izraz moći kojom se može ovladati sparušenim indijskim krajobrazom. Bijahu istinski kraljevski simboli teritorijalne kon-trole, ali i metafore raja ostvarenog na zemlji – u neprijatnoj i neskladnoj Indiji. Obale Jumne uskoro će biti obrubljene deset-cima takvih vrtnih sklopova. Na planu Agre iz 1720.-ih godina (u gradu koji je u zenitu snage imao oko 700 tisuća stanovnika) bit će ih četrdeset i četiri. Taj Mahal treba vidjeti, dakle, u tom širem urbanom kontekstu. ¶ Treba pažljivije pogledati i njegov tlocrt da biste shvatili kako se prvotno prostirao na dvostruko većoj površini. Naime, rijetko je koji posjetitelj svjestan da je sastavni dio plana uključivao i danas kaotični dio grada, Taj Ganj, unutar kojega se još naziru svi elementi kompozicije vrta koji se prostire pred mauzolejom – ovdje u formi ukrštenih bazarskih ulica, s tržnicama svile, mirodija… i dijelova rezerviranih za kara-vansaraje. Riječ je, podcrtava Ebba Koch, o jedinstvenom i visoko kreativnom transferu sheme charbagha u sklopu izrazito utili-tarne građanske arhitekture. Da smo načistu: ove dvije zone

The lively profane half of the complex was meant to retain the representative half, with the mausoleum in the middle, which was originally open only to the privileged. The expensive mech-anism of the Taj was maintained with bazaar and caravanserai income, including the income from thirty villages around Agra. (Maybe those who are launching the renovation of the syna-gogue in Zagreb should bear this in mind. And by the way: it seems that Diocletian’s Palace in Split was originally with a similar concept in mind – with the utilitarian northern and the representative central and southern part.) ¶ Finally, who designed the Taj Mahal? A Westerner who, for the first time, sees its symmetry, regulated space in the middle of the urban and landscape chaos, incrustations of semi-precious stones, as well as individual motives which remind them of memorable paintings, for example, of the Venetian early Renaissance (Gio-vanni and Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio…), feels familiarized at least with the architecture of the mausoleum. Indeed, the Portu-guese Jesuit Manrique, who was in Agra during the construc-tion, suggested that a certain Venetian goldsmith, Geronimo Veroneo, might have something to do with the project, but this

information was not confirmed by several other contemporar-ies who traveled for various reasons to India at that time. We may find amazing similarities between the Mughal mausole-ums and the Taj Mahal itself, and several Filarete’s plans for imaginary Sforzinda, from his famous treatise (though pro-claimed by Giorgio Vasari as the funniest and, possibly, the most ridiculous book ever written), with its images of octago-nal temples framed by four bell towers as slender as minarets, erected on a high plinth. Still, there is no doubt that Filarete’s inspiration came from his contacts with many Persian ambas-sadors in Venice in the 1460s. After all, scholars have rightfully warned that the very name of the city Sforzinda, as the com-bination of the name of the Duke of Milan and mythical Indus, may originate also from Persian Shahzinda, meaning the living king, which is the royal graveyard in Samarkand. (Filarete’s utopian city was, in fact, the first Western city with a com-pletely symmetric layout.) The most likely candidate for the architect of the Taj Mahal may be the enigmatic Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, from the family of respectable Mughal architects, the Afghan speaking the Persian language, who received many orders from Shah Jahan, but he was also a famous astronomer, surveyor and poet. None of the Westerners would at that time understand the Islamic ideals in such a way and shape them in architecture. ¶ All the motifs of the mausoleum and gardens allude to Paradise, especially the calligraphic inscriptions from the Quran written with the most beautiful letters ever designed. The mausoleum and the garden are an inseparable unity in the architectural and symbolic sense. (Arabic jannat is a Muslim word for paradise, and in literal translation it denotes a garden or a yard). The Taj Mahal is turned away from the Yamuna River, elevated on a high plinth, at the edge of the garden (Char Bagh),

Bichtir, Alegorijski portret Shaha Jahana kao Kralja Svijeta, oko 1630., knjižnica Chester Beatty

Bichitr, allegorical portrait of Shah Jahan as the King of the World, around 1630, Chester Beatty Library

Shah Jahan na Paunovu prijestolju

Shah Jahan on the Peacock Throne

Taj Mahal, grobna komora s kenotafima

Mumtaz Mahal i Shaha Jahana

Taj Mahal, the tomb chamber with the

cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan

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(nam) (mm)

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Središnji svod Velikih vrata

The central vault of the Great Gate


– reprezentativna, sveta i aulička, grobišna i doktrinarno sim-bolička te, s druge strane, svjetovna, trgovačka, pekunijarna – referiraju na islamski koncept usklađenog duhovnog i materijal-nog svijeta. Živa, profana polovica čitavog sklopa trebala je održavati reprezentativnu polovicu, s mauzolejom u središtu, u koju su izvorno mogli ući samo povlašteni. Od davanja bazara i karavansaraja, povrh prihoda trideset sela uokolo Agre, održa-vao se skupocjeni mehanizam Taja. (Možda bi sve ovo mogli imati na umu oni koji danas pokreću obnovu sinagoge u središtu Zagreba. I posve uzgredno: čini se da je po sličnom konceptu izvorno bila zamišljena i Dioklecijanova palača u Splitu

– utilitarnog sjevernog i reprezentativnog središnjeg i južnog dijela.) ¶ Konačno: tko je projektant Taj Mahala? Zapadnjak koji ga prvi put vidi u njegovoj simetriji, u tom ulomku uređenog svemira usred urbanog i krajobraznog kaosa, u inkrustacijama poludragog kamenja pa i u pojedinim motivima, konačno i na temelju zapamćenih slika, recimo, mletačke rane renesansne (Giovanni i Gentile Bellini, Carpaccio…) osjeća se bliskim barem s arhitekturom mauzoleja. Zaista, portugalski isusovac Manrique koji je u vrijeme gradnje boravio u Agri sugerira da je stanoviti mletački zlatar, Geronimo Veroneo, mogao imati udjela u pro-jektu, no tu vijest ne potvrđuje nekoliko drugih suvremenika koji

su radi različitih poslova u to doba putovali po Indiji. Na nekoliko Filareteovih planova za imaginarnu Sforzindu, iz njegova zna-menita traktata (koji će, doduše, G. Vasari proglasiti najsmješ-nijom i možda najglupljom knjigom ikad napisanom) – s prika-zima oktogonalnih hramova uokvirenih četirima zvonicima tankim poput minareta, podignutim na visokoj plinti, nalazimo začudne sličnosti s mogulskim mauzolejima i samim Taj Maha-lom. No nema sumnje da je Filareteova inspiracija došla iz kon-takata koje je mogao imati s više perzijskih poslanika u Veneciji 1460.-ih godina. Uostalom, opravdano se upozorava da bi i samo ime grada – Sforzinda – po kombinaciji imena milanskog

vojvode i mitskog Inda, moglo doći i od perzijske Shahzinde u značenju živi kralj, odnosno naziva kraljevskog groblja u Samar-kandu (Filareteov utopijski grad bio je, ipak, prvi grad na Zapadu posve simetričnog tlocrta). Najizgledniji kandidat za projektanta Taj Mahala mogao bi, dakle, biti enigmatični Ustad Ahmad Laha-uri iz obitelji uglednih mogulskih arhitekata, afgan-perzijskog govora, koji je od šaha Džahana dobio niz narudžbi, a bio je i znamenit astronom, mjernik i pjesnik. Nijedan zapadnjak ne bi u to vrijeme mogao na takav način razumjeti islamske ideale i oblikovati ih arhitekturom. ¶ Svi motivi mauzoleja i vrtova alu-diraju na Raj, a osobito kaligrafski natpisi preuzeti iz Kurana

divided into four parts by water canals representing the four rivers in Paradise. The pathways create additional 16 smaller gardens. The mausoleum is reflected in the elongated marble pool in the center of the garden: the tank of abundance (havd al-kavtar) shall drench Mohammed’s thirst when he arrives on the Judgment Day. The original documents mention lush veg-etation (roses, daffodils, many fruit trees, cypresses), that were turned into green meadows in the period of British coloniza-tion. ¶ Everything about the Taj is cloaked in legends. One of them says that Shah wanted to erect a similar mausoleum for himself, but made of black marble, on the other side of the

Yamuna River, or to erect a black bridge over the river. Recent research discovered moonlight gardens with an octagonal pool on the other side of the river, designed to reflect the Taj in the moonlight. ¶ The name Taj Mahal (short for Mumtaz Mahal) became widespread due to writings by foreigners, while the Mughal documents always mention it as the Enlightened Grave. The entire complex is much more than a tomb to a woman, no matter how adorned she was. Shah Jahan probably originally thought of it as his own mausoleum, but also as a gigantic allegory of the Judgment Day – the event followed by the judgment over people and jinn for what they have done during

their lives. ¶ It is worth noting that the unconditional love that Shah Jahan had for Mumtaz Mahal received quite a different meaning after her death. This unusual ruler (who never smiled and was always sober, unlike all Mughals before and after him who usually left this world in delirium tremens, who was miles away from religious tolerance of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather) turned to concubines and almost died in September 1657 due to an aphrodisiac overdose. It was the signal for the onset of the battle to death between his sons. The Mughal throne was in general not acquired by primogeni-ture. The end of his rule was not glorious. Shah Jahan was

imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb in 1658, who was martial and puritan in character. The legend says that he could see the Taj Mahal from his luxurious cell in the Red Fort of Agra, but only in the reflections of the facets of the fabulous Kohinoor dia-mond that he used to keep over his famous Peacock Throne. When he finally went to jannat in 1666, he left the architecture to tell the story about him. And probably the best and shortest version of this story is told by a verse inscribed in the Persian language on the walls of the reception hall (Diwan-i-Khas) of the palace in Shahjahanabad: If there is a Paradise on Earth, it is Here, it is Here, it is Here!

Agra, fotografije neposrednog

ambijenta Taj Mahala

Agra, photographs of the immediate

environment of Taj Mahal

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– ispisani najljepšim pismenima koja su ikad oblikovana. Mau-zolej i vrt čine nedjeljivo jedinstvo u arhitektonskom i simbolič-kom smislu (arapski džennet, islamski izraz za raj, u doslovnom prijevodu znači vrt ili bašta). Taj Mahal se leđima okrenuo Jumni, uzdignut je na visokoj plinti, na rubu vrta (čarbag, Char Bagh), podijeljenog na četiri dijela kanalima koji simboliziraju četiri raj-ske rijeke. Staze unutar tih dijelova stvaraju dodatnih 16 spušte-nih manjih vrtova. Mauzolej se zrcali u izduženom mramornom bazenu u središtu vrta: cisterna bogatstva (havd al-kavtar) utažit će žeđ Muhamedu prilikom njegova dolaska u času Sud-njeg dana. Izvori spominju bujnu vegetaciju (ruže, narcise, obilje voćaka, čemprese), dočim su se u doba britanske kolonizacije preferirali zeleni travnjaci. ¶ Sve oko Taja zaogrnuto je legen-dama. Po jednoj, šah je za sebe htio podići slični mauzolej, ali od crnog mramora na drugoj obali Jumne ili preko rijeke rastegnuti crni most. Recentna istraživanja otkrila su pak na suprotnoj strani rijeke mjesečeve vrtove s oktogonalnim bazenom, projek-tiranim da bi se u njemu Taj zrcalio na mjesečini. ¶ Ime Taj Mahal (skraćeno od Mumtaz Mahal) prihvatili smo slijedom pisanja stranih namjernika, a u mogulskim ispravama uvijek se navodi kao prosvijetljeni grob. Čitav sklop mnogo je više od grobnice jednoj ženi, ma koliko obožavanoj. Po svoj prilici šah ga je zami-slio otpočetka i kao vlastiti mauzolej, ali i kao gigantsku alegoriju Sudnjega dana – događaj nakon kojega slijedi ponovno proživ-ljenje i suđenje ljudima i džinima za djela koja su činili tijekom života. ¶ Bezgranična ljubav koju je šah Džahan nosio prema Mumtaz Mahal dobila je nakon njene smrti, valja dodati, suprotni odraz. Taj neobični vladar (koji se nikad nije nasmijao i koji je uvijek ostajao trijezan, za razliku od svih mogula prije i poslije njega, koji su obično s ovoga svijeta odlazili u delirium tremensu, daleko od vjerske tolerantnosti svog oca, djeda i pradjeda) – potpuno se predao konkubinama, da bi se u rujnu 1657., uslijed prekomjerne doze afrodizijaka, našao s jednom nogom u grobu. Bio je to signal za početak borbe na smrt između njegovih sinova (mogulski tron u pravilu se nije stjecao primogeniturom). Svr-šetak kraljevanja bio mu je neslavan. Džahan-šaha je 1658. zato-čio Aurangzeb, vlastiti sin marcijalnog i puritanskog karaktera. Legenda kaže da je iz svoje luksuzne tamnice u Crvenoj tvrđavi u Agri, u kojoj su mu pričali bajke o vlastitom djetinjstvu, mogao vidjeti Taj Mahal, ali samo u odbljesku na fasetama fabuloznog Koh-i-noor dijamanta kojeg je ranije držao na vrhu čuvenog Paunova prijestolja. Kada je 1666. konačno otišao u džennet, ostavio je za sobom arhitekturu da o njemu priča. A tu bi priču najbolje i najkraće mogao izreći dvostih ispisan perzijskim jezi-kom na zidovima dvorane za audijencije (Diwan-i-Khas) palače u Shahjahanabadu: Ukoliko Raj postoji na Zemlji, on je Ovdje, on je Ovdje, on je Ovdje!

Taj Mahal u jutarnjoj magli. Pogled iz

Mjesečevih vrtova

Taj Mahal in the morning mist.

The view from the Moonlight Garden

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Documents

Taj Mahal - Orismetara, mauzolej izgleda velik. Smanjuje se kako mu se pribli-žavate, povećava kad ga napuštate. Kažu, što potvrđujem, da ga nosimo u srcu sve većeg i većeg