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TADŻ MAHAL - PIĘKNO SYMETRII - Orientana

TAJ MAHAL - THE BEAUTY OF SYMMETRY

I resisted visiting the Taj Mahal for a long time. I don't like visiting monuments, I prefer to observe ordinary people and the things they do, walk through bazaars and sit in parks. Since my friends from India were very keen to visit the Taj Mahal, one day we got on a train to Agra and set off on our way to this spectacular monument.

Considered the seventh wonder of the world, the beautiful white building is actually a tomb, and not a Hindu one, but a Muslim one at that. It was built as a tomb for the wife of the Mongol emperor Shah Jahan. His beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died after giving birth to her fourteenth child, and before her death she asked her husband to build a building in her honor. The emperor wanted to erect a monument in which undisturbed symmetry would reign. The building stands on the banks of the Yamuna River, in a square garden, which in Muslim architecture symbolizes divine perfection. The main building is a mausoleum with a large dome, on the sides there are two mosques made of red stone, and in the four corners there are minarets - towers from which muezzins call Muslims to prayer. In the very center of the mausoleum, his wife's tomb was to stand. However, the beauty of symmetry was disturbed, but more on that later.

The Taj Mahal took 22 years to build. It was built by about 25 thousand workers. Legend has it that after the work was done, the emperor ordered their thumbs to be cut off so that they could not replicate such a structure anywhere else. The building is very interesting - built of white marble, and the entrance gate is covered with symbols made of precious stones resembling inscriptions from the Koran. Each wall is beautifully carved both outside and inside. I do not recall seeing such elaborate carvings in marble anywhere else in the world. Inside, the walls are decorated with precious stones, which, when illuminated, shine beautifully.

Hindus say that the Taj Mahal is as changeable as a woman. The color of the building changes depending on the intensity of light. Illuminated by the sun and the moon from different angles, it has multi-colored visualizations. Pearl pink at dawn, opalescent yellow in the evening, bright white during the day. The Taj Mahal shows how we pollute the environment. The white facade has to be renovated quite often, because it turns gray due to pollution. The Indian authorities, wanting to protect the monument, have banned the construction of factories in the area.

The beauty of symmetry was completely destroyed. By whom? Well... The emperor wanted to build a black copy of the Taj Mahal for himself on the other bank of the Yamuna. Of course, to have even more fun with symmetry. Nothing came of these plans. After his wife's death, his health deteriorated, one of his sons took advantage of this, killed the other successors to the throne, and threw his father in prison. After his father's death, he ordered him to be buried in the Taj Mahal next to his mother's grave, thus disturbing the wonderful symmetry. It really doesn't look good - a small grave in the center and a large grave next to it. But fortunately, the disturbance in proportions is visible only when we enter the mausoleum, until then we can admire the beauty of symmetry.

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