Hello, friends! What is the mystery of the Taj Mahal? What's hiding behind the 22 closed doors of the Taj Mahal? Some people claim that idols of Hindu Gods are hidden behind them. On the other hand, some say that they are hiding the fabled good days. The first door hiding cheap petrol and diesel, the second hiding employment opportunities, Some people have gone further and said that the Taj Mahal is actually a Shiv Temple, whose real name is Tejo Mahalaya. According to a theory, it wasn't built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, rather it was built by Raja Paramardi Dev, in the 13th century. After that, it was passed down to Raja Maan Singh, and Shah Jahan bought the Taj Mahal from his grandson, Raja Jai Singh. Another popular theory about the Taj Mahal is that Shah Jahan had chopped off the hands of 20,000 labourers, after building the Taj Mahal, so the workers who worked on the Taj Mahal, couldn't build any other monument as beautiful as it. In one theory, the Tejo Mahalaya was built in the 13th century. In the other, Shah Jahan had chopped off the hands of the workers in the 17th century, about 450 years later. So both theories cannot be true. So in today's video, come let's try to find out the truth. What is the history of the Taj Mahal? How much truth do these theories hold? And what's hidden behind the 22 closed doors of the Taj Mahal? "The 7th Wonder of the World,
a symbol of love." "It's said that history is based on facts and not on emotions." "What history? Whose history?
Whose version of history?" "BJP government demands the 22 closed doors of the Taj Mahal be reopened." "And the judges have slammed the Taj Mahal petitioner." Friends, let's understand the real history of the Taj Mahal first. Shah Jahan and Mumtaz. What were their real names? Shah Jahan was born on 5th January 1592, his real name was Khurram. Shah Jahan, was the royal name which was bestowed on him later, literally meaning 'the King of the World'. Shah Jahan. His father was Jahangir and
his mother was Jagat Gosain. The chief queen of Jahangir. Mumtaz Mahal was born in 1593. The name Mumtaz Mahal was bestowed on her after her wedding. Her real name was Arjumand Banu Begum. Khurram and Mumtaz were engaged in 1907, and they were married in 1612. Shah Jahan had other wives as well. Including Qandahari Mahal
and Akbarabadi Mahal. But according to court historians, these marriages were based on political alliances. Various historical accounts tell us that Shah Jahan's relationship with his other wives, were marriages only in name. They were simply to maintain political alliances. Shah Jahan's affection and love for Mumtaz was much more than that for his other wives. this is why she was given more favours. Such as the title of Malika-i-Jahan. The Queen of the World. Her palace, Khas Mahal, was said to have been decorated with pure gold and precious stones. According to historical records, Mumtaz showed great interest in administration as well. So when Shah Jahan went for diplomatic negotiations, or for war, Mumtaz always accompanied him. Shah Jahan had exactly one child with all his other wives, with Mumtaz Mahal, he had 14 children. Half of the children died during childbirth. This used to be much more common back then. The healthcare system used to be terrible. Unfortunately, Mumtaz died while giving birth to their 14th child. It happened on 17th June 1631. The cause of death is said to be postpartum haemorrhage. Loss of blood. After her death, Shah Jahan went into deep grief. He was paralysed with grief. He cried for days and weeks on end. And it is said that he was in isolation for a year mourning the death of his wife. When he appeared again, it's said that his hair had turned white. His back was bent and his face showed his despair. In Islamic theology, it is believed that the body of the deceased turns into soil. but the soul remains in the grave. Later, on Judgement Day, the souls will return to the Creator, when it'll be decided if the soul would go to heaven or hell. So the grave is known as the final resting place of a soul. Shah Jahan believed that the final resting place of Mumtaz Mahal, should be grand. Unparalleled. When he decided to build the Taj Mahal, the Chief Architect was Ustad Ahmad Lahori, was bestowed the title 'Nadir-e-Asr'. The Wonder of the Age. The calligraphy on the white marble panels, was done by Abdul Haq Shirazi. More than 1,000 elephants were used for transporting the building materials. The white marble was brought in from Rajasthan, Jasper from Punjab, Jade and Crystal from China, Turquoise from Tibet, Sapphire from Sri Lanka, And Carnelian from Arabia. The gems and materials that can be found in the Taj Mahal, have come from all over the world. In total, it took 22 years to build the Taj Mahal. For its construction and decoration. Approximately 22,000 labourers worked on it every day for 22 years. Friends, the history of controversies about the Taj Mahal has been long. But let's begin our story with the most recent controversy. The recent controversy began with the news that BJP politician Rajneesh Singh had filed a petition in Allahabad High Court, that the 22 closed rooms of the Taj Mahal should be opened. He wanted ASI, the Archaeological Survey of India, to set up a special committee to look into the 22 closed rooms. And would investigate if there are any idols of Hindu Gods in there. This petition held that there were claims that the Taj Mahal is actually a Hindu Temple, called Tejo Mahalaya, and that it was the duty of the court to direct the opening of the closed doors, under the Freedom of Information. But this petition was dismissed by the court. the bench of judges said that by filing such petitions, the PIL system was being mocked. The court asked for the basis of the petition. Whether any legal or constitutional rights were being infringed here. If not, what were the grounds for the petition? Historical research is handled by historians, and for that proper methodology needs to be followed. But friends, if you think that after the dismissal of this petition the secret would always remain a secret, don't fret. In this video, I'll tell you the secret hidden behind the locked doors. Friends, the thing is that ASI sources have already told the Indian Express, that these 22 'rooms' aren't rooms really. It's actually a long corridor with doors on its side. And the locked doors in question haven't always been locked. According to the source, the ASI staff clean out the corridor each week or in a couple of weeks. A retired ASI official has said that there's nothing on the walls. To have such rooms in the basement is not unusual for Mughal monuments. The Humayun's Tomb in Delhi,
and the Safdarjung Tomb, both have similar underground rooms in the basement. They make up a corridor and act as the structural element on which the monument rests. Another retired ASI official revealed that the area was cordoned off because there was nothing for the tourists to see. If they are kept open unnecessarily, there would be a crowd there. So to preserve the monument, the areas have been locked. After all, the Taj Mahal is a protected World Heritage Site with more than 100,000 visitors every day. So with so many people constantly passing through, they wanted to avoid the wear and tear and protect the monument. Even after the petition was dismissed, after ASI officials explained things, the debate didn't stop. Some people in the media and social media kept this debate on unreasonably. It seemed almost like someone was benefiting from this, by discussing these things. So after about 3 or 4 days, the Archaeological Survey of India, tried to end this debate forever by releasing pictures. They publicly shared photos of the closed rooms. They showed the restoration work going on, and what the rooms looked like from the inside. Agra's ASI Chief R. K. Patel told India Today, that the pictures can be found live on the website of ASI. And that it was a part of their newsletter and anyone can see the pictures by going to their website. There was one thing noteworthy in these photos, and it was the hard work of the ASI staff, for the conservation of our monuments. You can see the before and after pictures here before and after the restoration works. It is only due to them, that our historical gems continue to be preserved like so. Friends, this wasn't the first time that such claims were made. There were several similar petitions before this as well. Such as in April 2015, a similar suit was filed in the Agra court by six lawyers, who claimed that the Taj Mahal was actually a Shiv Temple. They asked the court for permission to allow Hindus to worship there. In their plea, lawyer Hari Shankar Jain and his colleagues said that that it was Raja Paramardi Dev who built Tejo Mahalaya, in 1212 AD. And that this temple was later inherited by Raja Maan Singh in the 17th century. After which the property was held by Raja Jai Singh and then in 1632, Shah Jahan annexed it. After the death of Mumtaz Mahal, after the death of Shah Jahan's wife, this temple was converted into a memorial for Mumtaz. Then the court directed the Central Government, Union Ministry of Culture, Home Secretary, and the ASI, to submit their replies to this claim. In the reply, the government denied this possibility. In November 2015, the Union Cultural Minister Mahesh Sharma, told the Lok Sabha that the government found no evidence that the Taj Mahal was a Hindu Temple. The ASI said the same thing. In 2017, the Archaeological Survey of India had said that the Taj Mahal is a tomb, not a temple. This is quite different from the Gyanvapi Masjid controversy. because there's actually proof that there was once a temple. But let's discuss that controversy in some other video, and let's focus on the Taj Mahal in this video. They clarified the story about Raja Jai Singh, and said that the land was annexed from him, instead, it was given by him in exchange. It has an interesting history behind it, friends. In 2017, historian Rana Safi had written a blog, on the DailyO platform, a blogging platform of the India Today group. In it, she wrote that Mughals were very interested in keeping a record of history. Many Mughal Emperors had written autobiographies they wrote in journals. Such as Jahangirnama written by Jahangir. Additionally, they even had the official history written down by court historians. For example, during Akbar's reign, Abu'l-Fazl had kept a record of history. Apart from these, there were other accounts of history written by other people of the era. These are known as Contemporary Accounts. These contemporary texts were compiled by W. E. Begley and Z. A. Desai in their book Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb. The various sources of that time were compiled together so that we can see them in that context and get to know the detailed history of the Taj Mahal. How the Taj Mahal was built. What were the methods used back then? All of it has been documented beautifully. Raja Jai Singh had friendly relations with Shah Jahan. We get to know that Raja Jai Singh used to live in the area where the Taj Mahal is built. That place has been referred to in multiple sources as 'Haveli', 'Khana', and 'Manzil'. Different sources use different words. But these words were used to mean home. Small or big, Raja Jai Singh's home was there. Raja Jai Singh actually wanted to donate his land for free, to build the tomb for the Emperess. Historian Ira Mukhtoy tells us, that this is because the royals of Jaipur, had close relations to the Mughals after Akbar's marriage to Amer's Harka Bai. Bollywood films will have us believe that Akbar's wife's name was Jodha Bai. As shown in the picture Jodha Akbar, A good film, but in this instance, historically incorrect. Jodha Bai literally means a Lady from Jodhpur. But it was Jahangir, who had married the daughter of Jodhpur's ruler, Raja Uday Singh. His daughter was Jagat Gosain. She was Shah Jahan's mother. Back then, a British East India Company officer, Lt Col James Todd, wrote a book Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. In that book, he had mistakenly mentioned Jodha Bai instead of Harka Bai. That's why people have this confusion that Jodha Bai was Akbar's wife. Akbar's wife was Harka Bai, she was Raja Maan Singh's aunt. And Raja Maan Singh was the trusted general of Akbar. Shah Jahan was Akbar's grandson, and Raja Jai Singh was Raja Maan Singh's grandson. You can now understand why the two had such close relations. Raja Jai Singh and Shah Jahan. This is why Raja Jai Singh offered his land for free he wanted to donate it to Shah Jahan, so that Shah Jahan could build a tomb for Mumtaz. But despite his offer, Shah Jahan didn't accept the offer of the land for free. In exchange, Shah Jahan gave four palaces to Raja Jai Singh. This transaction has been recorded in official papers as well, and it was dated as it happened 28th December 1633. You can see this record in Jaipur's City Palace now. Historian Rana Safi uploaded a copy of it with translation on Twitter. Friends, if you find the history of this era quite interesting, I'd like to recommend an audiobook on KUKU FM, on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. In this audiobook, you get to know the details of the Maratha empire, their expansion, and the way they defeated Mughals, you can listen to it in an interesting format. KUKU FM is an audio learning platform. on it, you can listen to many such audiobooks, books on history, and motivational books, Normally, it costs ₹399 per year. but since they have sponsored this video, there's a special discount for you. You will get 50% off when you use the coupon code DHRUV50. So the cost for the annual subscription to KUKU FM will cost you ₹199. Only ₹199 to access their entire library for a year. The link to it is in the description below. Go check it out. And now let's get back to the topic. But who spread the lies? That Raja Jai Singh had a temple there which was then forcefully taken away by Shah Jahan? The existence of Tejo Mahalaya, a Shiv Temple, is not supported by any evidence. But the lies must have come from somewhere. That are now being repeated everywhere. The answer to this, friends, is one person, Purushottam Nagesh Oak, also known as P.N. Oak. He was the person who came up with the claim of Tejo Mahalaya. Interestingly, he was not a historian. He was a history enthusiast, and enjoyed writing history as well. But he wasn't a historian because he made up his version of history. He rewrote history. Friends, the methodology of historians is extensive and tiring. A historian has to look through old newspapers and magazines, diary entries, letters, painting, historical accounts of court historians, accounts of contemporary historians, accounts of travellers, carbon dating, and then they have to analyse them to understand what would have happened back then. After they've understood it, they have to write it down, and create an account by citing the various sources they've relied on. Then their writing is peer-reviewed, by other historians, to check how accurate the account written by the historian. But P.N. Oak's methodology was vastly different from it. The methodology he used worked somewhat like this. Since the word Vatican sounds similar to the Sanskrit word 'Vatika', he'd write that it was probable that Vatican had once been a Hindu temple. He didn't stop at 'probable', he wrote it as if that was the truth. Westminster Abbey was also a Hindu temple, And I'm not joking, guys. These were the things written by P.N. Oak in his pamphlets. If you think these sound weird, he has written things way weirder than these. He had written a pamphlet on Christianity. He said that Christianity is actually Chrisn-Nity. [ideology of Hindu deity Krishna] According to him, Jesus Christ had visited India, between the ages of 13 and 30 years old, and he had learned Krishna's ideologies here. And so the entirety of Christianity is therefore inspired by Hinduism. Not only this, but he also claimed that Islam and Judaism too have come from Hinduism. How? Because Abraham sounds like Brahma. Abraham's wife Sarah, was probably Saraswati, Moses would be Mahesh aka Shiv. In fact, according to him, the entire world was ruled by an ancient Hindu empire. Coming back to the topic of the Taj Mahal, it was P.N. Oak who created this conspiracy theory about the Taj Mahal. In his opinion, the Mughals didn't build any monuments. Initially, P.N. Oak said that the Taj Mahal was a wonder of ancient Hinduism, built in ancient times. The historians refuted this by saying that buildings from before the 4th century have only survived is they were made by cutting out rocks. No other buildings have survived. So this couldn't be possible. The Taj Mahal was actually built in the 1600s. After this, Oak revised his claim. Then he said that it was built in the year 1155, by Raja Paramardi Dev. By the Chief Minister of the Raja Dev. When history is so close to home, it doesn't take long to be revised. In 1989, he wrote another pamphlet titled Taj Mahal: The True Story. On the basis of his own pamphlet, he filed a PIL in the court in 2000 saying that we need to know the truth behind it. Interestingly, in court, he had also cited that Shah Jahan had acquired Raja Jai Singh's palace. So he took one line from actual history, and the remaining part was fabricated by him with an active imagination. To be honest, P.N. Oak could have been a brilliant fiction author. But for some reason, he chose to be a self-proclaimed historian. Supreme Court had dismissed his petition saying that it was a misconceived notion, the Supreme Court had even ridiculed him, saying that it seemed he was bitten by a bee. And so we arrive at 2010. WhatsApp started gaining traction. The WhatsApp University began. And the fictional tales of P.N. Oak, turn into theories of the WhatsApp University. When these fictional stories are forwarded time and again, and reach people. People start believing them to be true accounts, and then there are fresh petitions put to our courts. And then our courts have to waste their time on such futile petitions. Interestingly, after being forwarded so many times in WhatsApp University, P.N. Oak had talked about the year 1155, but in the latest petition filed in the court, the petitioner claimed that it was built in the year 1212. "The petition talks about the history of the Taj Mahal as well. According to it, Raja Paramardi Dev had built Tejo Mahalaya in 1212." But what difference does it make? These fake theories now become topics for extended debates on TV. And then the people on TV debate as if this is a huge mystery. As if we don't know what the truth is. When the entire truth has been repeated time and time again. Another famous claim about Shah Jahan is that Shah Jahan had chopped off the hands of the workers, after the Taj Mahal was built. So that they couldn't build another monument like the Taj Mahal. Our Union Agricultural Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, had repeated this claim last year, saying that "the Taj Mahal was built in Agra, and the workers who built it, had their hands chopped off. But the workers working on the Vishwanath Corridor, will be welcomed with a petal shower a new tradition was started in this country by PM Narendra Modi." If you try to think about this claim logically, you will wonder how it could have been possible. The 20,000 workers who had built the Taj Mahal, were their hands chopped off on the same day? If not, were they asked to come in one by one, you're they next one to get your hands chopped off. And everyone stood in a queue waiting for their turn. It wouldn't have been possible to cut off the hands of 20,000 people in a day, So they had a list of names of the workers whose hands were to be chopped off that day, and then they'd turn away those who were scheduled for another day. Asking them to adhere to the schedule. If that happened, would the workers have waited in the queue waiting for their turn to get the hands cut off? Waiting in the queue for his turn. As soon as they would have started cutting off their hands, the others would have run away. Obviously, there's zero evidence of it being true historically, Had this been true, archaeologically, we would have found skeletal remains of the hands somewhere. This would have been mentioned somewhere in some book. Some court historians would have mentioned it. There were several travellers there during that era from foreign countries, they wrote books as well, something would have been mentioned somewhere at least. But there are no mentions of it. In fact, the evidence that we have, are contrary to this claim. Shah Jahan had built a huge settlement known as Taj Ganj, it still exists today, thousands of masons, artisans, and workers assembled there from different regions of the empire, to work on the Taj Mahal together. The descendants of those workers, still live there and work there, and practice the skill of their forefathers. Actually, after building the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan's workers built an entirely new city. It was named Shahjahanabad. Later named Delhi. So think about it logically, the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Jama Masjid, were built around the same time. Had the hands of the workers being chopped off, how could the empire have built such enormous monuments? Shah Jahan's period is believed to be the Golden Period of Mughal Architecture, it was possible only because when Shah Jahan respected his workers. Today, for many people, the Taj Mahal is a symbol of Love. Poets like Shakeel have written about it, describing it as "An Emperor built the majestic Taj Mahal, and gave the world a symbol of love." On the other hand, legendary poets like Sahir Ludhyanvi had written, "An Emperor created a display of wealth, to ridicule the affection of the poor." Irrespective of the version of the poem that is true, today, it cannot be denied, that the Taj Mahal is an architectural marvel. It is one of the official Seven Wonders of the World, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. India's one of the most popular tourist attractions, people from all around the world come to see it. There is no reason not to be proud of it, It is a gem of India in all aspects. If this was an informative video, you can watch other history videos in this playlist and the next time you see someone whether in your WhatsApp groups, or your friend or family member, repeating such baseless rumours about the Taj Mahal, do share this video with them. Thank you very much!
