bibi ka maqbara :: the mammoth

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bibi ka maqbara

I don't particularly fancy tombs of massive scale; but here it is, this massive structure - Bibi Ka Maqbara, in 𝘉𝘦𝘨𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘳𝘢, Aurangabad. when people told me to visit the 'mini-Taj Mahal' in Aurangabad, when I was in the city in 2018, they were kidding. I mean, what can I say? I was not ready for this monumentous mausoleum! I can now, only wonder how huge Taj Mahal would be (not that I'd ever been to Agra, and most probably never will.).

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the mausoleum

The awe comes with gazing upon the grandiose of this huge marble and basaltic traps structure or the Mughal architecture is all good. but do we know who this mausoleum was built for? the great Mughal emperor Aurangzeb raised it in honor of his first and favorite consort, named Dilras Banu Begum, and as Rabia-ud-Daurani posthumously. and, possibly, Dilras died of puerperal fever, after delivering her fifth child. this, like many monuments in India, is just another symbol of violence - the violence of incessant pregnancies.

In India, where maternal mortality is declining sharply, even if not everywhere, this monument should be remembered, not for the fact that Dilras was Aurangzeb's favorite wife - but for the fact that she was subject to a violent death due to incessant pregnancies at a young age of 35.

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the gardens of Bibi ka Maqbara

The mausoleum is laid out in a char bagh formal garden, like many other Mughal structures found in India like Taj Mahal in Agra or the tomb of Jehangir in Lahore, India. It stands at the centre of a huge enclosure measuring approximately 458 m. N-S X 275 m. E-W. Char bagh, literally meaning four gardens, is an Indo-Persian quadrilateral garden layout based on the four gardens of Paradise mentioned in the Qur'an.