Ruins of blackened marble across the river in Moonlight Garden, Mahtab Bagh, seemed to support this legend. A more credible theory for the origins of the black mausoleum was demonstrated in 2006 by archaeologists who reconstructed part of the pool in the Moonlight Garden. A dark reflection of the white mausoleum could clearly be seen, befitting Shah Jahan's obsession with symmetry and the positioning of the pool itself.

No evidence exists for claims that describe, often in horrific detail, the deaths, dismemberments and mutilations which Shah Jahan supposedly inflicted on various architects and craftsmen associated with the tomb. No evidence exists for claims that Lord William Bentinck, governor-general of India in the 1830s, supposedly planned to demolish the Taj Mahal India Tours and auction off the marble. Bentinck's biographer John Rosselli says that the story arose from Bentinck's fund-raising sale of discarded marble from Agra Fort.

Origins of the Taj Mahal India Tours, together with other historic structures in the country currently ascribed to Muslim sultans pre-date Muslim rule of India and thus, have a Hindu origin. India's Supreme Court dismissed P. N. Oak's petition to declare that a Hindu king built the Taj Mahal India Tours in 2000.