There has been much misunderstanding upon these subjects. The wrong lady has been named by authors who might have understood better, had they consulted the proper authorities, and it has also been asserted that the architect was unknown. Bayard Taylor, for instance, in his India, China, and Japan, informs his readers that “Shah Jehan—the ‘Selim’ of Moore's poem—erected it as a mausoleum to his Queen Noor Jehan, the ‘Light of the World,’ ” and he several times repeats this blunder. Mr. Taylor is not profound in Indian history. Every statement in the above quotation is incorrect. The Selim of Moore's poem was not Shah Jehan, but his father; Noor Jehan was not Shah Jehan's wife, but his stepmother; and Noor Jehan was not buried in the Taj, but beyond the Attock, in the North-west, where her tomb is to-day a mere ruin. That Bayard Taylor should write in this superficial style is not very unusual with him: but that such authors as Montgomery Martin and Bishop Heber should say it was for Noor Jehan is indeed surprising: for they had acquaintance with the history of India, and had not to depend upon ignorant guides and guide books for the information they would give their readers.
Our description of Etmad-od-Doulah's Tomb will present the facts, showing that the infant born in the desert afterward became the wife, first of Sheer Afghan, and then of Prince Selim, after he mounted the throne, taking the name of Jehangeer, when he conferred upon her the title of Noor Jehan. These were the hero and heroine of Moore's poem. Shah Jehan, who built the Taj, was the son of Jehangeer by a different wife than Noor Jehan. Noor Jehan's brother, Asuf Jan, had a daughter whom Shah Jehan married, and to whom he gave the title of Moomtaj-i-Mahal, and it was to her memory that he built the Taj, long after his father was dead, and while he held his stepmother, Noor Jehan—who died in 1646—in a state of honorable captivity. Moomtaj-i-Mahal died in 1631, fifteen years before her aunt, Noor Jehan.
The history of Moomtaj is very interesting, and we may give a few of the facts here. She was very beautiful, and obtained an unbounded influence over the mind of the Emperor, exhibiting
