Taj Mahal

"Along with the masses of labourers flocking to Agra once news of its [Taj Mahal] inception spread, materials for the construction had also begun arriving; red sand stone from local quarries in Fatehpur Sikri and marble dug from the hills of far-off Makrana in Rajasthan. In order to transport the marble, a ten-mile long ramp of tampered earth was built through Agra on which an unending parade of thousand elephants and bullock carts continually dragged the blocks of marble to the building site."

"One can imagine having a procedural rule that anything ambiguous should be treated as the Taj Mahal unless we see that it is labelled "fog"...The motorist replies: "What sort of rule is this? Surely the best guarantee I can have that the fog is fog is if I fail to see the sign saying fog because of the fog.""

"Shah Jahan, who proved an emperor to be shorter than a lover, who turned a grave into a temple who gave his beloved a place of God and converted love into a prayer."

"Subsequently, in that heaven-like tract of land (sarzamin), the heavenly plinth (asman asas) was laid for a mausoleum (rauza) of lofty foundation ( alabunyan ), which, in strength and loftiness and high dignity and magnificence of rank, is the honor of the terrestrial world, which is completely of white marble slabs, and which has arranged round it a pleasing garden having the marks of Paradise. On one side of it, a lofty mosque was built and on the other side, a replica thereof, a guest house (mihman-khana) of lofty expanse: and on its sides (atrafash), there were constructed (bunyad nazirafta) rooms (hujaraha) and portals (aiwanha), and before its gates, several newly fashioned (nau-ain) plazas and joy-increasing sarais (sara), which have no like and equal on the surface of the earth in spaciousness of area and novelty of design. In the space of twenty years, that building (imarat), the foundation (buniyadash) which is the eighth layer of the world and whose cap is the tenth roof of the sky, was completed at a cost of 50 lakhs of rupees; and through its extreme loftiness of dignity and rank and excellence of decoration and ornament, it has become the honor of the ancient roof of the azure sky."

"On the 6th of Bahman (4 Rajab 1041/26 January 1632), the fruit of the tree of sovereignty and caliphate, the prince of lofty worth Sultan Shah Shuja Bahadur returned to the royal camp from Akbarabad, along with the Umdat ul-Mulk Wazir Khan and the noble and chaste lady Sitti Khanan, who held the post of the deputy (wikalat) and chief Lady-in-Waiting of that one of praiseworthy habits, acquired the honors of accompanying the litter encompassed by unlimited pardon and forgiveness; and all along the way, they provided food and largesse to the poor."

"And plans were laid out (tarah afganand) for a magnificent building ( imarat-i-alishan ) and a dome (gumbadi) of lofty foundation (rafi-buniyan), which for height (dar bulandi) will, until the Day of Resurrection, remain a memorial to the sky-high aspiration of His Majesty the Second Sahib Qiran and which for strength (darustwari) will display the firmness of the intentions of its builder. And the far-seeing engineers (muhandisan) and art-creating architects (mimaran-i-sanat-afrin) estimated the cost of this building (imarat) would be 40 lakhs of rupees."