At the centre of Mehtab Bagh, on the opposite bank of the Yamuna from the Taj, lie the rough black-marble foundations of what tradition says was meant to be the Black Taj — Shah Jahan's intended mirror mausoleum for himself.
Whether the legend is true (the marble is now believed to have weathered from white) is less important than the romance of the spot: from the Taj, you look across; from here, you look back, with the Yamuna in between. The view of the Taj from this side at sunset is one of the great photographic compositions in India.