Bearing this in mind, we can understand how foolish it is to formulate criticisms of the Taj based on ordinary architectural principles as practised in Europe.  Many of these criticisms, which might be appropriate enough if applied to a modern provincial town hall, are only silly and impertinent in reference to the Taj.  Some are born tone-deaf, others colour-blind, and there are many who can find beauty in one particular form or expression of art and in no others.  So the Taj will always find detractors.  But whoever tries to understand the imaginative side of Eastern thought will leave the critics to themselves, and take unrestrained delight in the exquisitely subtle rhythm of this marvellous creation of Mogul art.

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The gateway of the Taj faces a spacious quadrangle surrounded by arcades.  This is a caravan serai, or place where travellers halted.  Here, also, the poor were provided with food and shelter, and on the anniversary day vast sums were distributed in charity from the funds with which the Taj was endowed.  It is well to pause before entering, and admire the proportions and perfect taste of the decoration of this gateway; for afterwards one has no eyes for anything but the Taj itself.  It is much finer in design than the similar gateway of Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra.  An Arabic inscription in black marble, of passages taken from the Koran, frames the principal arch, and invites the pure of heart to enter the Gardens of Paradise.

The first view of the Taj is from within this noble portal, framed by the sombre shadow of the great arch which opens on to the garden.  At the end of a long terrace, its gracious outline partly mirrored in the still water of a wide canal, a fairy vision of silver-white—­like the spirit of purity—­seems to rest so lightly, so tenderly, on the earth, as if in a moment it would soar into the sky.  The beauty of the Taj, as in all great art, lies in its simplicity.  One wonders that so much beauty can come from so little effort.  Yet nothing is wanting, nothing in excess; one cannot alter this and that and say that it is better.

The garden, as originally planned, was an integral part of one great design.  The solemn rows of cypresses were planted so as to help out the lines of the architecture; the flowering trees and flower-beds completed the harmony with a splendid glow of colour. [10] Beautiful as the first view of the Taj is even now, one can hardly realize how glorious it must have been when the whole intention of the design was fulfilled.  At present there is not a single spot in the garden itself which gives a view of the composition as a whole.

Advancing down the main terrace, paved with stone and laid out with geometric flower-beds, we reach a marble platform with its fountain (see frontispiece), [11] where a nearer view of the Taj may be enjoyed.  Such a platform was the central feature in all Mogul gardens.  The terraces to the right and left of it end in two fine pavilions of red sandstone, intended for the accommodation of the custodians of the mausoleum and for storehouses.