1.  The names and titles of the empress ’over whose remains the Taj is built’ were Nawab Aliya Begam, Arjumand Banu, Mumtaz-i-Mahall.  The title Nur Mahall, as applied to her, is without authority:  it properly belongs to her aunt.  ‘It is usual in this country’, Bernier observes, ’to give similar names to the members of the reigning family.  Thus the wife of Chah-Jehan—­so renowned for her beauty, and whose splendid mausoleum is more worthy of a place among the wonders of the world than the unshapen masses and heaps of stones in Egypt—­was named Tage Mehalle [Mumtaz-i-Mahall], or the Crown of the Seraglio; and the wife of Jehan-Guyre, who so long wielded the sceptre, while her husband abandoned himself to drunkenness and dissipation, was known first by the name of Nour Mehalle, the Light of the Seraglio, and afterwards by that of Nour-Jehan-Begum, the Light of the World.’ (Bernier, Travels, ed.  Constable, and V. A. Smith, 1914, p. 5.)

2.  Properly, Ghias-ud-din, meaning ‘succourer of religion’.  The word Ghias cannot stand as a name by itself.

3.  The author’s slight description of Itimad-ud-daula’s exquisite sepulchre is, in the original edition, illustrated by two coloured plates, one of the exterior, and the other of the interior (restored).  The lack of grandeur in this building is amply atoned for by its elegance and marvellous beauty of detail.  An inscription, dated A.H. 1027 = A.D. 1618, alleged to exist in connexion with the building, has not, apparently, been published. (N.W.P.  Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. vii, p. 687.)

Fergusson’s description and just criticism deserve quotation.  ’The tomb known as that of Itimad-ud-daula, at Agra, . . . cannot be passed over, not only from its own beauty of design, but also because it marks an epoch in the style to which it belongs.  It was erected by Nur-Jahan in memory of her father, who died in 1621, and [it] was completed in 1628.  It is situated on the left bank of the river, in the midst of a garden surrounded by a wall measuring 540 feet on each side.  In the centre of this, on a raised platform, stands the tomb itself, a square measuring 69 feet on each side.  It is two stories in height, and at each angle is an octagonal tower, surmounted by an open pavilion.  The towers, however, are rather squat in proportion, and the general design of the building very far from being so pleasing as that of many less pretentious tombs in the neighbourhood.  Had it, indeed, been built in red sandstone, or even with an inlay of white marble like that of Humayun, it would not have attracted much attention, its real merit consists in being wholly in white marble, and being covered throughout with a mosaic in ’pietra dura’—­the first, apparently, and certainly one of the most splendid, examples of that class of ornamentation in India....