These defects were immediately attended to by Shahjahan. There is no truth in the familiar tale that Shahjahan had the hands of his chief architect chopped off to prevent building him another building of Taj's reputation. Before he met his fate, this architect, it is said, was allowed to take in the last look to ensure perfection. At this moment he hammered the dome at the point, which caused leakage. This only adds to the legendary perfection of the Taj Mahal in all details.

In 1648 Shahjahan had shifted capital to Shahjahanabad. He already had the Peacock Throne and the Kohinoor. He never remarried but his lust for life continued unabated. Bernier, Tavernier, and Niccola Mannuci provide salacious details about the Mughal Emperors private indulgences. As prisoner in the Agra fort during his last days, Shahjahan fell terribly ill. His parched throat could hardly swallow a few drops of sherbat. Nicola Manucci relates a tale that a faqir in Bijapur had warned Shahjahan that the day his hands stopped smelling of apples he would die. Shahjahan recalled the words and smelt his hands. A sigh escaped his dry lips. He casted his last lingering glance at the Tajmahal from his bed in the Musamman Burj. His tired eyelids closed on a shattered heart forever. And so died on January 31, 1666 "Abu'l Muzaffer Shihab-al-Din Muhammad Sahib-i-Qiran-Sani, Shahjahan Padshah Ghazi son of Nur-al-Din Jehangir Padshah, son of Akbar Padshah, son of Humayun Padshah, son of Babar Padshah, son of Oma Sheikh Mirza, son of Sultan Abu Sa'id son of Sultan Muhammad Mirza, son of Miraza Shah, son of Amir Timur Sahib-i-Qiran."

Jahanara planned a funeral procession befitting the grand Mughal. She was herself a prisoner hence she couldn't order people. A small number of insignificant menials carried the body through the small Watergate to the river. Quietly Shahjahan's body left the fort where he had embellished the magnificent marble palaces and pavilions. In the early hours of the day his body was entered into the crypt. A rather poignant end for the fifth Mughal Emperor. It is said Shahjahan's favorite elephant Khaliqdad sensing the tragedy also died as the burial was in progress.

Nicola Manucci adds a spicy tale of Aurangzeb's reaction to Shahjahan's death. Aurangzeb "sent a trusted man to pass a heated iron over his father's feet, and if the body did not stir, then to pierce the skull down to the throat to make sure that he was really dead. Orders were sent to I'tibar Khan not to allow his burial until the arrival of Aurangzeb in person." Once Shahjahan had escaped Bijapur in a coffin to reach Agra. The son remembered the tricks his father could play. But court chronicles mention that Aurangzeb reached Agra 25 days after the burial when all he did was to enact a brief scene of simulated grief, and offer fake condolences to Jahanara as a ploy to snatch jewels in her possession.

Only Tavernier mentions the beginning of another tomb for Shahjahan, across the river. Historians and archaeologists dismiss this idea. However, the foundations of a mammoth building, deep huge wells on which stood plinth structures now exposed due to erosion of land under water, and lone cupola at the end of a long boundary wall replicating the Taj Mahal, are all too evident of the abandoned enterprises. For once Tavernier could be believed. His Majesty Firdaus Ashvani, (Shahjahan's posthumous title) was buried beside the Empress, the only asymmetrical work at the Tajmahal. Now more than three centuries have passed and the Taj seen by millions of visitors every year continues to retain a romantic aura about it "so like a fabric of mist and sunbeams…. a silvery bubble… you almost doubt its reality." Some women like Mrs. Sleeman would exclaim" I would die tomorrow to have such another rover me". The Taj Mahal is still "the grand passion of an Emperor's love," as Edwin Arnold wrote, or as Tagore said of the Taj" one solitary tear… on the Cheek of time." The subtle play of light on the white marble dome creates its own moods to which even the hardest cynic ultimately succumbs. Millions and millions of photographs taken fail to capture the quintessence of the Taj Mahal.