...when our hearts are full we need much less

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    The defining moment in my life that shifted the way I was thinking...and brought me to ubuntu.

  • Who am I?

    Great question. Tough to answer.

  • What I do

    In the sense of living and breathing and working and playing.

  • May 18, 2011

    I've read and read and read on this wondrous buildling. The Taj Mahal stands in the city of Agra, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, on the banks of the Yamuna river.


    They say it took 22 years to build. It was built in the memory of the beautiful Arjumand Bano Begum, who won the heart of a Mughal prince. She was married at 21 to Emperor Jahangir's third son Prince Khurram and stayed loyally by his side through good times and bad: in the luxurious royal palaces of Agra as well as the transient tents of war camps. He built it as her tomb. This website says that "Much of what is known about the Taj Mahal among the general public is stuff of legends. Travelers told many stories in which there is no basis in historical fact, imaginative recollections that made their trips to India more interesting back home. Even the name "Taj Mahal" comes from an Englishman, probably a contraction of Mumtaz Mahal's name. (The tomb was originally known as the Rauza-I Munavvara, the "Illumined Tomb.")

    During the centuries Taj Mahal became an international significant symbol with its poetic beauty, overwhelming passion, purity and somewhat melancholic. There have been arguments over what it was, how it was built...


    "There's a lot of mythologizing about the deathless love between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal," says art historian Milo Beach. "The best substantial evidence we have is, of course, the Taj itself, because he did build this extraordinary monument to his wife, and it's very unusual for the tomb of an emperor's wife to be so elaborate. That clearly is evidence of a quite extraordinary love or relationship between them. There would have been no reason to do this otherwise. But we know that Shah Jahan was an enormous womanizer. We know from the gossip in the bazaars and in the market places of the time that he was known to carry on affairs with many, many other women. That's not part of the romantic myth, but it's probably much closer to the reality. You know, people make these things up, and they make good stories."


    "The sky forms a curtain to the Taj," adds Shobita. "It's the backdrop. At night, when the sky is black, this little marble jewel box stands glistening in the moonlight; in the early morning, when the sky is pink and orange, the white marble reflects those colors; and at sunset it has a completely different look. So the sky is as important as any other physical detail around the Taj. And the way it's set on that platform, standing up against the huge expanse of sky, it seems as though they were evoking a sort of heavenly curtain to play a part in the scheme of things."


    Regardless of what it is and what story we know, this guy puts it best:


    "...That's really what makes it a treasure. It's one of those few monuments that has a kind of communication with people that leads to an immediate understanding that this is something wonderful and perfect and persuasive and powerful. You may not know any of its antecedents, you may not know how it was built, but you can understand the building. You don't need to go and read about it to understand it."


    So no more reading. I'll wait to see this in person.

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