The Taj Mahal is scrawled over with 14 chapers of the Koran but nowhere is there even the slightest or remotest allusion in that to Shah Jahan’s authorship of the Taj. (A close scrutiny of the Koranic lettering reveals that they are grafts patched up with bits of variegated stone). Had Shah Jahan been the builder he would not have done that.

Well known western authorities on architecture such as E.B.Havell Mrs. Kenoyer and Sir. W. W. Hunter have gone on record to say that the Taj Mahal is built in the Hindu Temple style. Havell points out that the ground plan of the ancient Hindu Chandi Sewa Temple in Java is identical with that of the Taj had the Taj Mahal originated as a mausoleum how could its plan match with that of an ancient Savia Temple?

While Shah Jahan’s own court chronicler Mulla Abdul Hamid Lahori makes no mention of any architect subsequent writers had no right to make their own guesses.

The encyclopedia Britannica vaguely mentions that the plans had been prepared by a council of architects from a number of countries.

• A central dome with octagonal cupolas at its few corners is a common feature in Hindu Temples.
• The four marble pillars at the plinth corners are of Hindu style. Such towers serve to demarcate the holy precinct. Hindu wedding alters and alter set up for Satyanarayan worship have pillars raised at their four corners.

Here it may be recalled how some historians assume that the Taj Mahal edifice was raised with columns panels beams and brackets and everything else belonging to earlier Hindu building and hence the similarity.

The misleading notions that mediaeval buildings are Muslim construction simply because they are said to be tombs and mosques and because long tradition ascribed them to Muslim origins got rooted in Indian history.

Western historian’s presumption that every medieval muslim edifice must have been built from debris of an earlier Hindu building is only half the truth. It needs to be noted that ancient temples, and mansions and forts were not built from prefabricated standardized pillars beams brackets and panels to be freely dismantled and used else where at will. If a gigantic building is dismantled and all its stone slabs are transported to another place they would all get badly mixed up. It would them be a time consuming headache to sort them out and rearrange them to know which stone belongs to which storey and which portion. Some of the parts would chip off and break in the process and would be useless for erecting a building of dimensions different from those of the building demolished. It is almost impossible to erect a new building in all its perfection and artistry from the debris of an old one.

Another absurdity in believing that mosques and tombs could be built by demolishing temples and palaces is that these buildings are all made of brick and lime inside. Stone only forms the outer pitching which cannot be rearranged to suit their own shapes, patterns and uses.

So, the simple truth is that Shah Jahan did not construct the Taj Mahal. He just stepped into Mansingh’s mansion put it to his use by burying (?) Mumtaz in it throwing away the idol, chiseling away Hindu ornamentation or plastering it over and engraving the Koran on it. This is the reason why mediaeval tombs and mosques look so similar to temples and mansions. The same holds true for the Taj Mahal.

Innumerable such points are brought up in favour of our contention, but I believe what we have said above should suffice to prove that the traditional account of Shahajahan having built the Taj-Mahal should rank as one of the biggest hoaxes of history. The pricking of the Taj bubble automatically deflates much of medieval history.
I hope that scholars, students and teachers of Indian history will atleast now sit up and think instead of keeping their heads buried in the sands of fanciful myths that go in the name of Indian history.