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The Mute Eloquence of the Taj Mahal: Ba-zaban-e Be-zabani

The Mute Eloquence of the Taj Mahal: Ba-zaban-e Be-zabani

The Mute Eloquence of the Taj Mahal: Ba-zaban-e Be-zabani

The Mute Eloquence of the Taj Mahal: Ba-zaban-e Be-zabani - DAG World

The Mute Eloquence of the Taj Mahal: Ba-zaban-e Be-zabani

Salar Jung Museum

Hyderabad, 4 July - 4 October 2026

An exhibition by DAG in collaboration with Salar Jung Museum

Agra Artist (Company School)

Naqsha Rauza-i-Taj Mahal

Opaque watercolour on paper, c. 1830

About The Exhibition Publications Partners

Is there anything left to be said about the Taj Mahal? India’s most famous building has inspired a vast range of writing, from paeons of praise penned by court historians and enthusiastic foreign travellers, to scholarly analyses and travel agents’ blurb, covering every aspect of its character and history. Artists, too, have responded with a plethora of images—from paintings, prints and photographs to tourist posters. Yet, the Taj seems to ask for more. Against the commonly uttered remark that ‘words cannot describe it’, we feel the need to add some appropriate further response of admiration.

Rana Safvi, our guest curator, turns this problem on its head by positioning the Taj itself as the ‘speaking’—though ironically silent—agent. Taking a cue from Shah Jahan’s court chronicler Abdul Hamid Lahori, who spoke of the ‘mute eloquence’ of what he called the ‘Rauza-i Munawwara’, she shows how the tomb’s design and details speak to us of the beliefs, aspirations and condition of Shah Jahan and his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. They do so, for example, through the careful selection and judicious placement of quotations from the Quran, and through the language of flowers, in the exquisite pietra dura decoration on the cenotaphs and screen.

Other less explored aspects of the tomb and its complex that are explored in this exhibition (and book) include the Taj’s role in the commercial life of the city through the almost forgotten market sector known as Taj Ganj; and the role of other women besides Mumtaz in the court of Shah Jahan, as well as in the architectural ensemble itself. New light is also thrown on more familiar aspects, such as the role of the Taj simultaneously as a private family monument and a public imperial one; the interplay between the river and the gardens on both banks that serve as its setting; and the journey of the Taj in the colonial and popular imaginations.

Murshidabad Artist (Company School)

The Taj Mahal

Watercolour on paper, c. 1800

The Tomb from Near and Far: From Company to Postcard

Company paintings—made in the early nineteenth century by Indian artists working for foreign visitors—often depict the tomb and its surrounding minarets up close, without context. The monument was depicted precisely, almost clinically, like a botanical specimen on a blank ground. In wider angled views, like those from across the river, elements of landscape began to intrude. In the later nineteenth century, when the monument was well known across the world, Indian and foreign artists alike focused less on the details of the architecture and more on landscape scenery. The distant view with a dramatic atmospheric effect became the favoured approach.

The sequence of images in this section clearly reveals how much early photographers took their cue from artists in selecting angles and framing compositions. By the early twentieth century, photographic images were circulating widely in postcard format, and the Taj was well launched on its career as an international cliché. Some postcard publishers added colour to the black-and-white photograph, to try and recapture the impact of earlier painted images.

Agra Artist (Company School)

View of the Taj Mahal from the River Jumna

Watercolour on paper with embossed border, c. 1810–20

Pietra Dura and the Interior

Pictures of the interior of the tomb give us a more intimate view of the burial place of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan. The best and most numerous works of this kind are by Company artists from the early nineteenth century. They developed an ambitious depiction of the whole height of the interior. Though this view was often repeated, they focused more usually on details of the pietra dura inlay, the coloured ornament on the cenotaphs, and the surrounding screen.

The pietra dura (or parchinkari) excited Western admiration, in part because of the universal appeal of floral decoration but also because the technique of stone inlay has much in common with a European Renaissance tradition and so established a point of apparent connection (which was sometimes wilfully misunderstood).
Here, too, photographers followed suit, once they overcame the technical challenge of photographing in the dimly lit interior. By the early twentieth century, images of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan’s graves were traversing the world on picture postcards.

Agra Artist (Company School)

Grave of Shah Jehan

Opaque watercolour and ink on paper, c. 1816

The Garden and Beyond

Accounts of the architectural excellence of the Taj Mahal tend to focus on the tomb, pointing to its symmetry and proportions, and the perfection of the materials. But countless commentators have also made the point that the tomb does not stand alone: it is part of a much larger building ensemble. The other parts include the mosque and the Mihman Khana that share its platform, and the garden, with its enclosing wall, gate, side pavilions and octagonal towers. The garden, in particular, has excited the imaginations of artists and photographers, as it provides the marvel with a suitable setting. There is no image of the garden in its original form. The images collected here show it at various times, sometimes heavily overgrown, at others, adapted to changing tastes in garden design, and at yet others, showing the effects of attempts at authentic restoration.

Beyond the garden lies the forecourt, or Jilaukhana, which separates the garden from Taj Ganj, the original commercial zone that was intimately attached to the Taj as a viable institution. Images of this area, and of the additional tombs that cluster around the outer walls of the garden, are exceptionally rare.

Agra Artist (Company School)

Rauza-e-Taj Mahal, Agra

Opaque watercolour highlighted with gold pigment on paper, c. 1830

Other Monuments

In addition to the many structures that form parts of the Taj complex, there are other buildings that stand in various relations to the Taj. In the popular imagination, the Taj is ‘unique’ and ‘incomparable’. But calling it so blurs its connections with many other buildings near and far. These include the tomb of Itimad-ud-daulah (often referred to as the ‘baby’ Taj); Agra Fort, dominating the bend in the river; and the major buildings of the city such as its Jama Masjid. More distant in time and space is Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, which is often pointed to as a precursor or model for the Taj. In their design, their ornamentation and their materials, all these buildings have affinities with the Taj Mahal, revealing it as just one point (even if the high point) of a longer shared history of Mughal design. Each of them also attracted artists and photographers from the early nineteenth century onwards.

Agra Artist (Company School)

A Panoramic View of Agra Fort from the River Jumna

Watercolour highlighted with gold pigment on paper pasted on paper, c. 1808–10

The Family

Most people think of the Taj Mahal as a symbol of love. However much scholars insist it is a symbol of the afterlife, or of imperial power, most of us see it as a gesture to a beloved wife. Some enthusiastic commentators have eulogised the building’s supposedly feminine grace, pointing to its smooth forms and pure surface. Even those who scoff at such anthropomorphism cannot avoid the story of the family: of the devoted husband and the favoured wife. Behind the central pair stands the figure of the scheming aunt, Nur Jahan, wife of Jahangir, who led the faction at court that brought Shah Jahan and Mumtaz to power.

Contemporary portraits of the principal men in the story are plentiful. Authentic portraits of the women—who lived behind the veil of purda—are extremely rare. But this circumstance has not prevented later artists from imagining the royal couples enjoying private moments, or envisaging moments of high drama, such as the dying Shah Jahan taking his last view of the monument to his long-missed consort.

Hugo Vilfred Pedersen

The Emperor Shah Jahan Imprisoned at Agra

Oil on canvas

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