Documentary Evidence
13. Shahjahan’s own court-chronicle, the Badshahnama, admits that a grand mansion of unique splendor, capped with a done (imaarat-e-alishan wa gumbaze) was taken from the Jaipur Maharaja Jaisingh for Mumtaz’s burial, and that the building was then known as Raja Mansingh’s palace.
14. Prince Aurangzeb’s letter to his father, emperor Shahjahan, belies the Archaeological Department’s reliance on Tavernier. Aurangzeb’s letter is recorded in at least three chronicles titled ‘Aadaab-e-Alamgiri’ ‘Yaadgaarnama’ and the ‘Muraqqa-I-Akbarabadi’ In that letter Aurangzeb records in 1652 A. D. itself that the several buildings in the fancied burial place of Mumtaz were all seven-storeyed and were so old that they were all leaking, while the dome had developed a crack on the northern side. Aurangzeb, therefore, ordered immediate repairs to the buildings at his own expense while recommending to the emperor that more elaborate repairs be carried out later. This is proof that during Shahjahan’s reign itself the Taj complex was old needed immediate repairs.

15. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur retains in his secret personal Kapad Dwara collection two orders from Shahjahan dated December 18, 1633 ( bearing modern numbers R. 176 and 177 ) requisitioning the Taj building complex. That was so blatant a usurpation that the then ruler of Jaipur was ashamed to make the documents public.
16. The three firmans demanding marble were sent to Jaisingh within about two years of Mumtaz’s death. Had Shahjahan really built the Taj Mahal over a period of 22 years, the marble would have needed only after 15 or 20 years and not immediately after Mumtaz’s death.
17. Moreover, the three firmans mention neither the Taj Mahal, nor Mumtaz, nor the burial. The cost and the quantity of stone required also are not mentioned. This proves that an insignificant quantity of marble was needed just for Koranic implantation and Mumtaz’s two cenotaphs to match with the Tajmahal marble. Even otherwise Shahjahan could never hope to build a fabulous Tal Mahal by abject dependence for marble on a non-cooperative Jaisingh.

European Visitor’s Accounts
18. Tavernier, a French jeweller has recorded in his travel memoirs that Shahjahan “purposely buried Mumtaz near the Taz-I-Makan (i.e. the Taj building) where foreigners used to come (they do even today) so that the world may admire.” He adds, “the cost of the scaffolding was more than that of the entire work.” The work that Shahjahan commissioned in the Tejomahalaya Shiva temple was plundering all the costly fixtures inside it, uprooting the Shiva idols, planting two cenotaphs in their place on two stories, inscribing the Koran along the arches and walling up six of the seven stories of the Taj. It was this plunder; desecration and sealing of hundreds of rooms which took 22 years. Tavernier’s noting mistook the peripheral bazar rooms to be the Taz-I-Makan alias Tajmahal instead of the outstanding marble edifice.
19. Peter-Mundy, an English visitor to Agra recorded in 1632 (within only a year of Mumtaz’s death) that “the places of note in and around Agra, included Taj-e-Mahal’s tomb, gardens and bazaars.” He therefore confirms Tavernier’s noting that the Taj Mahal had been a noteworthy building even before Shahjahan. Peter Mundy blunders in believing Taj-I-Mahal to be the name of the buried lady instead of the building.
20. De Laet, a Dutch official has listed Mansingh’s palace about a mile from Agra fort, as an outstanding building of pre-Shahjahan’s time. Shahjahan’s court chronicle, the Badshahnama, records Mumtaz’s burial in that same Mansingh palace.
21. Johan Albert Mandelslo who describes life in Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz’s death) in detail (in his VOYAGES AND TRAVELS INTO THE EAST INDIES, published by John Starkey and John Basset, London) makes no mention of the Taj Mahal being under construction though it is commonly erringly asserted or assumed that the Taj was being built from 1631 to 1653.