Myths

A longstanding myth holds that Shah Jahan planned a duplicate mausoleum to be built in black marble across the Jumna river.[15] The 'black taj' idea originates in the fanciful writings of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a European traveller who visited Agra in 1665. The story suggests that Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb before the black version could be built. Ruins of blackened marble across the river, in the so-called Moonlight Garden (Mahtab Bagh) seemed to support this legend. However, excavations carried out in the 1990s found only white marble features discoloured completely to black. The garden buildings had collapsed due to repeated flooding. Others speculate that the 'black taj' may refer to the reflection of the Taj in the large pool of the moonlight garden. [16]
Numerous stories describe — often in horrific detail — the deaths, dismemberments and mutilations which Shah Jahan inflicted on various architects and craftsmen associated with the tomb. No evidence for these claims exist.[17]
Sometimes misinformation about the Taj has been used for political or self-serving advantage.[18] Lord William Bentinck, governor of India in the 1830s, supposedly planned to demolish the Taj Mahal and auction off the marble. There is no contemporary evidence for this story, which may have emerged in the late nineteenth century when Bentinck was being criticised for his penny-pinching Utilitarianism, and when Lord Curzon was emphasising earlier neglect of the monument. Bentinck's biographer John Rosselli says that the story arose from Bentinck's fund-raising sale of discarded marble from Agra Fort.[19]
The speculations of P.N. Oak, through his book Taj Mahal: The True Story (ISBN 0-9611614-4-2) have received lots of attention. He claims that the Taj Mahal was originally a Shiva temple and that all structures in India, currently ascribed to the Mughals, actually have an earlier Hindu origin.[20][21] In 2000 India's Supreme Court dismissed Oak's petition to declare that a Hindu king built the Taj Mahal and reprimanded him for bringing the action.[22][17]
A more poetic story relates that once a year, during the rainy season, a single drop of water falls on the cenotaph. The story recalls Rabindranath Tagore's description of the tomb as "one solitary tear hanging on the cheek of time". Another myth suggests that beating the silhouette of the finial (set into the paving of the riverside forecourt) will cause water to come forth. To this day officials find broken bangles surrounding the silhouette.[23]