Architecture & Sculptures
GS Paper: GS Paper I | Subject: Art & Culture | Last updated: 2026-07-20
Prelims
(Key facts, data, schemes, laws, organizations — MCQ-ready points)
Mohenjo-daro 'Dancing Girl' — NCERT to Restore Original (The Hindu, 16-06-2026)
- NCERT will restore the original image of the "Dancing Girl" in its Class 9 Arts textbook (Madhurima), after criticism that the artefact had been depicted "clothed" (its bare torso shaded over)
- Dancing Girl: a ~10.5 cm bronze figurine from Mohenjo-daro (Indus Valley Civilisation, ~2500 BCE), cast by the lost-wax (cire-perdue) technique — among the IVC's most iconic artefacts (housed in the National Museum, New Delhi)
The Taj Mahal Legal Tussle — "Tejo Mahalaya" Claims and the ASI's Position (The Hindu Explainer, 20-07-2026)
- Current status: in early July 2026 the Allahabad High Court (Bench of Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal) issued notices to the Centre and the Archaeological Survey of India, seeking their response to a plea challenging an Agra trial court order that refused a survey of the Taj Mahal. The petition, by advocate Harishankar Jain, contends the Taj is actually "Tejo Mahalaya", seeks a declaration that it is a Hindu temple, permission for Hindus to offer prayers, and the appointment of an Advocate Commissioner to inspect the monument
- The monument — established facts: built by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife Arjumand Bano (Mumtaz Mahal); took 22 years; chief architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori; a 17th-century structure and a UNESCO World Heritage monument
- The full sequence of authorship claims (an unusually clean chronology):
| Period |
Claim |
Refutation |
| 17th century |
Western writers credited Venetian Geronimo Veroneo, a jeweller |
Not an architect; unsupported |
| — |
Mughal Beg in Tarikh-e-Taj Mahal: designed by Muhammad Effendi, sent by the Sultan of Turkey |
Effendi was not an architect, as later revelations proved |
| Mid-19th c. |
Frenchman Austin de Bordeaux, a jeweller |
Austin died in 1632 — the year work on the Taj began |
| 1965 |
P.N. Oak, Taj Mahal is a Temple Palace — originally a Rajput palace of the 4th century |
Rejected by historians for lack of evidence |
| 1989 |
Oak revised it — Taj Mahal: The True Story — a Hindu temple of the early 12th century; the first association of the monument with a Hindu deity |
Supreme Court rejected the claim outright in 2000 |
- P.N. Oak was a non-historian — a teacher-turned-lawyer-turned-journalist — and the first person to cast aspersions on the tomb's authenticity
- The historians' consensus: no historian of medieval India has contested that the Taj is the tomb of Shah Jahan's wife — including Irfan Habib, Athar Ali, Satish Chopra and Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi
- The ASI's stand (2017) — the decisive technical argument: the ASI stated unambiguously that the Taj is a 17th-century tomb, and that the technology used in its construction and design — including pietra dura (the inlay of semi-precious stones into marble) — did not exist in pre-medieval days. An art-historical dating argument, not a theological one
- The litigation history: 2005 — Amarnath Mishra claimed before the Allahabad HC that the Taj was a temple built by the Chandela rulers in 1189; dismissed. 2015 — a civil suit in an Agra trial court sought a declaration that it is a Hindu temple; the court disagreed and later refused to order a survey of the kind ordered in Gyanvapi and Bhojshala — prompting the present appeal. 2022 — a PIL by a BJP leader in the Supreme Court, dismissed. 2024 — activists attempted to offer Gangajal at the Taj; foiled
- The legal backdrop to carry: the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 freezes the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on 15 August 1947 (exempting only the Ayodhya dispute) — though Section 4(2)'s bar on fresh suits has been tested by the survey orders in Gyanvapi and Bhojshala, and the Act's validity is itself pending before the Supreme Court
Mains
(Analysis, dimensions, significance, critique, policy angles — for 10/15 mark answers)
Contested Monuments — History, Evidence and the Survey as an Instrument (The Hindu, 20-07-2026)
- The pattern the explainer exposes: the Taj has attracted five distinct authorship claims across four centuries — Venetian, Turkish, French, Rajput-palace, Hindu-temple — each refuted on ordinary evidentiary grounds (Austin de Bordeaux died in 1632; Effendi was not an architect; pietra dura postdates the claimed period). The consistent feature is not a genuine scholarly dispute but the repeated assertion that an Indian achievement must have a non-Mughal author — first foreign, later Hindu. Naming this pattern is more analytically useful than adjudicating each claim
- The professional-consensus point: the claim has been rejected by every serious historian of medieval India, the ASI (2017), and the courts in 2000, 2005 and 2022. Its persistence therefore illustrates that historical questions are increasingly being litigated rather than researched — with courts asked to perform a function (determining historical fact) for which adjudication is poorly suited and archaeology well suited
- Why the survey is the real issue: the petitioners lost on the merits repeatedly; what they now seek is a survey — the instrument used in Gyanvapi and Bhojshala. The significance is procedural: ordering a survey converts a settled question into an open one, generates contested interim findings, and creates a public controversy independent of the eventual verdict. The remedy sought is the outcome. This is the sharpest point available for a Mains answer
- The Places of Worship Act tension: the 1991 Act was designed precisely to prevent the serial reopening of pre-Independence religious claims — Parliament's judgment that a constitutional democracy cannot function while adjudicating history. The Supreme Court in M. Siddiq (Ayodhya), 2019 described the Act as embodying secularism as a basic feature and as protecting non-retrogression. Yet survey orders have proceeded, testing whether the Act's protection is substantive or merely nominal
- The heritage-conservation dimension (an angle most answers miss): the Taj is a UNESCO World Heritage Site protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. Any invasive survey of a 17th-century marble structure carries conservation risk — the monument already faces yellowing from air pollution (the M.C. Mehta v. Union of India Taj Trapezium Zone litigation), groundwater depletion affecting its wooden foundations, and Yamuna pollution. Repeated litigation also diverts ASI's limited conservation capacity from preservation to legal defence
- The way forward: rely on archaeological and scientific method (material dating, architectural typology, epigraphy, Mughal-era documentary records such as the Badshahnama) as the standard for historical claims; give effect to the 1991 Act's bar on fresh suits; and separate religious sentiment from evidentiary determination — recognising that communities may hold beliefs the State need not adjudicate
- UPSC angle: Mughal architecture & pietra dura/charbagh/pishtaq features, ASI's mandate & the AMASR Act 1958, Places of Worship Act 1991 & M. Siddiq, history vs historiography & the use of the past, judicial adjudication of historical claims, UNESCO World Heritage protection, Taj Trapezium Zone & monument conservation, secularism as a basic feature
Representing Heritage Faithfully (The Hindu, 16-06-2026)
- Altering an artefact's depiction in a textbook raises questions of historical authenticity vs present-day sensibilities; faithful representation matters for public understanding of the Indus Valley Civilisation and the integrity of art education
- UPSC angle: Indus Valley art (bronze sculpture, lost-wax casting), NCERT curriculum & historiography, heritage representation