An article on the Taj, without some account of its architect, would be indeed incomplete. But the record, assuming its correctness, enables us to supply this information also. The wonderful man whose creation the Taj is, was, it is believed, a Frenchman, by the name of Austin de Bordeux, a man of great ability. The Emperor, who had unbounded confidence in his merit and integrity, gave him the title of “Zurrier Dust”—the Jewel-Handed—to distinguish him from all other artists; but by the native writers he is called “Gostan Esau Nadir ol Asur”—the Wonderful of the Age. For his office of “Nuksha Nuwes,” or architect, he received a regular salary of one thousand rupees per month—$6,000 gold per annum—with perquisites and presents, which made his income very large. He built the palace at Delhi and the palace at Agra, as well as the Taj.
Tavernier, the traveler, who saw this building commenced and finished, tells us that the Taj, in its erection, occupied 20,000 men for twenty-two years. Its cost, we are told, was “threescore, seventeen lakhs, forty-eight thousand and twenty-six rupees;” that is, £3,174,802 sterling, or, in American money, $15,874,010 gold, of the money of that time, equal to about $60,000,000 of our money! But many of the precious stones in the mosaic were presented by different tributary powers, and are not included in the above estimate. Having finished the Taj, the architect was engaged in designing a silver ceiling for one of the galleries in the palace at Agra when he was sent by the Emperor on business of great importance to Goa. He died at Cochin on his return, and is supposed to have been poisoned by the Portuguese, who were jealous of his influence at Court. Shah Jehan had commenced his own tomb on the other side of the Jumna, and it and the Taj were to have been united by a bridge; but the death of Austin de Bordeux, and the wars between Shah Jehan's sons, which then broke out, prevented the completion of these magnificent works, and so the Emperor was laid beside his consort, when he died in 1666, and the Taj contains the remains of both.
The Empress's title, translated, is, The Ornament of the Palace,
