Francois Bernier: The European Traveller Who Feared to Appreciate the Beauty of Taj Mahal
Francois Bernier was born in Anjou in 17th century France. He became an orphan at a very early age and was raised by his uncle. He had a great desire to see the world and so he embarked on a journey to fulfill that ambition. First, he visited Palestine and Egypt. He spent a year in Egypt before crossing the Red Sea to reach Jeddah, the Queen of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. Afterwards, he passed through the straits of Babel Mandeb, the Gate of Tears and arrived at Surat which constituted part of the Mughal Empire and the reigning Emperor was Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658 CE) who is known to have commissioned the construction of the Taj Mahal.
In his account, Travels in the Mogul Empire, Bernier expresses his thoughts on the Taj Mahal, highlighting his reluctance to openly acknowledge his admiration for the Mughal mausoleum because he observed that the structure was not built in accordance with accepted European monument construction norms, but he could not stop adoring it. He attributed his skepticism to his long sojourn in 17th century India. He arrived in medieval India in 1656 CE and worked as a physician for the Mughal court. However, he gained confidence when another Frenchman who had lately come from France expressed similar opinions about the Taj Mahal. He writes,
This pavilion is an oblong square, and built of a stone resembling red marble, but not so hard. The front seems to me longer, and much more grand in its construction, than that of S. Louis, in the rue S. Antoine, and it is equally lofty. The columns, the architraves and the cornices are, indeed, not formed according to the proportion of the five orders of architecture so strictly observed in French edifices. The building I am speaking of is of a different and peculiar kind; but not without something pleasing in its whimsical structure ; and in my opinion it well deserves a place in our books of architecture. It consists almost wholly of arches upon arches, and galleries upon galleries, disposed and contrived in an hundred different ways. Nevertheless the edifice has a magnificent appearance, and is conceived and executed effectually. Nothing offends the eye ; on the contrary, it is delighted with every part, and never tired with looking. The last time I visited Tage Mehale's mausoleum I was in the company of a French merchant, who, as well as myself, thought that this extraordinary fabric could not be sufficiently admired. I did not venture to express my opinion, fearing that my taste might have become corrupted by my long residence in the Indies ; and as my companion was come recently from France, it was quite a relief to my mind to hear him say that he had seen nothing in Europe so bold and majestic.
He concludes his remarks on the Taj Mahal in the following lines:
It is possible I may have imbibed an Indian taste ; but I decidedly think that this monument deserves much more to be numbered among the wonders of the world than the pyramids of Egypt, those unshapen masses which when I had seen them twice yielded me no satisfaction, and which are nothing on the outside but heaps of large stones piled in the form of steps one upon another, while within there is very little that is creditable either to human skill or to human invention.
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