The Taj Mahal is one of the 7 wonders of the world. It is one of the most visited monuments in the world. You must visit it at least once in your lifetime.
Table of Contents
Best time to visit Taj Mahal
From October to March is the best time to visit the Taj Mahal. In the summer the weather is too hot. It is important to visit at the right time. The weather is pleasant in the winter.
Taj Mahal visiting time
You can visit the Taj Mahal from sunrise to sunset from Saturday to Thursday. On Friday it is closed for visitors. Please note the ticket booked for the Taja Mahal is applicationbe for 3 hours only. You can choose before or after noon time to visit the monument.
Taj Mahal ticket price
Rs. 50 is the price of tickets for Indian citizens for visiting the Taj Mahal. Rs. 540 is fee for visitors from countries of the SAARC/BIMSTEC nations. Rs. 1100 is fee for rest of foreigners. There is no ticket required for kids below the age of 12 from any country.
Taj Mahal: Online ticket booking
Due to COVID times you can buy tickets for the Taj Mahal only online. There is no offline sale of tickets. To book tickets you can directly visit the official website maintained by Archaeological Survey of India – https://asi.payumoney.com/quick/taj You just select the date, time slot, nationality and number of persons. You easily pay the charge. After the payment is processed you will get to download an e-ticket in the form of a PDF file. Download on your phone and show at the time of the entry.
Best gate to enter Taj Mahal
There are 3 gates to enter the Taj Mahal. There is entry from west, east and south gates. The most crowded gate is the west gate. The best gate to enter the Taj Mahal is from the east. The east gate is least crowded. There are many good hotels situated near the east gate and because of this most foreign visitors enter from this gate. A good reason why the east gate is less crowded is because the ticket counter is not close to this gate. So try to book online tickets and enter from this gate to beat the crowd and long queues.
About Taj Mahal
The Taj Mahal is an ivory-white marble mausoleum located on the right bank of the Yamuna River in Agra, India. In 1632, Shah Jahan commissioned the building to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. Complex includes a mosque and guest house, as well as formal gardens that are enclosed on three sides by a crenellated wall. The tomb is the centrepiece of the 17-hectare complex.
For being “the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage,” the Taj Mahal was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. Mughal architecture at its finest, it’s considered by many to be a symbol of India’s rich history. Approximately 7-8 million people visit the Taj Mahal each year.
In 1643, the mausoleum was essentially finished, but the project continued for another ten years. At the time of its completion in 1653, the Taj Mahal complex was thought to have cost 32 million rupees, which would be approximately 70 billion rupees in 2020. Some 20,000 artisans were employed in the construction project, which was overseen by a board of architects led by the emperor’s court architect, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri.
Interesting Taj Mahal facts
The Taj Mahal is referred to in Arabic as “the crown of palaces” because of its size and splendour. An Islamic masterpiece in a predominantly Hindu country is said to be its crown jewel. From Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Indian architectural styles are brought together to show the Mughal Empire’s breadth and depth. Explore the Taj Mahal’s top ten facts.
It was constructed as a tribute to Shah Jahan’s most beloved wife. Shah Jahan, like many of his predecessors, had multiple wives during his lifetime. No other woman was able to win Shah Jahan’s affections as much as his third wife, Arjumand Banu Begum, better known as Mumtaz Mahal. It lasted 19 years and resulted in 14 children being born. Mahal died at the age of 39 due to complications during the birth of her final child. As a tribute to Mahal, Shah Jahan decided to build a magnificent tomb for his longtime companion. Mahal construction began in 1632, a year after her death; it lasted for about two decades.
Taj Mahal is one of the world’s Seven Wonders
The Taj Mahal was voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2007. Because all of the world’s listed wonders had been destroyed except for the Cheops Pyramid, a new initiative was launched.
Multiple influences in the Taj Mahal’s architecture
The Taj Mahal is without a doubt the most beautiful building in the world in terms of architecture and detail. Seeing it in person is a completely different experience from looking at it in a photograph.
You’ll be left wondering how humans managed to create such a stunning location, and why we don’t do it more often. Taj Mahal is one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, and there are no words to describe its splendour.
An enormous amount of manpower was required for construction
The Taj Mahal was built by a team of 20,000 artisans led by architect Lahauri. Animals were not the only ones working at the company. During the two-decade construction project, about a thousand elephants transported heavy building materials.
During times of war, the Taj Mahal was hidden by governments
In times of international hostility, the Taj Mahal’s status as an Indian icon has made it an easy target. The Indian government and people have gone to great lengths to protect this historic landmark from attack during World War II and the various wars fought between India and Pakistan throughout the twentieth century. To accomplish this, architects erected a large amount of scaffolding that shielded the building from bombers. As long as the deception was working, pilots would instead see a pile of bamboo instead of the world’s greatest natural wonder.
It is covered in Islamic calligraphy
Some of the Quranic calligraphy is beautiful, and it includes verses from the holy book. One of the most prominent inscriptions reads, “O soul, you are at rest. The Lord and you are at peace when you return to him, and he is at peace with you.
After the calligrapher completed his work, he left a humble signature that reads, “Written by the insignificant being, Amanat Khan Shirazi”.
It is the only part that is not perfectly symmetrical
An obsessive’s dream, the Taj Mahal’s long and wide diameters are perfectly symmetric. There is one exception to this otherwise uniform aesthetic scheme: the graveyard. After Shah Jahan’s death in 1666, the mausoleum’s artistic equilibrium was shattered by the placement of his grave west of its central location in Mumtaz Mahal’s casket.
Everything would fall away from the tomb
The 130-foot-tall spires at the platform’s edge, the Taj Mahal’s four minarets, were not strategically placed. Massive architectural projects were not uncommon to fail in the 17th century. Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, the chief architect of the Taj Mahal, tilted the towers slightly so that they would fall away from the rest of the structure, thereby protecting the crypt of Mumtaz Mahal from any harm.
Cars and buses must be parked away from Taj Mahal
For the sake of protecting the Taj Mahal from the harmful effects of pollution, no cars or buses can be closer than 500 metres from the main entrance. Relax, it’s a short distance from the drop-off point.