Mughal Gardens In India

The Indian Subcontinent is an old and long contested landscape of civilization. Alexander the Great and his armies arrived at the river Indus in the century BCE. In the first decades of the eight century, Muslim conquerors reached the Indian subcontinent, and the Province of Sind, near the river Indus, which has remained a Muslim area since. For the next seven centuries, the encounter between the Muslim Sultanates and other cultures of the subcontinent, in addition to exposure to Persia and China, led to a continuing development of a unique culture expressed through art, literature, architecture and gardens. 2 Babur founded the Mughal Empire in India in 1526, which lasted till 1858. His descendant came to appreciate the weather of the Indian Subcontinent, ranging from the hot plains of North India to the foothills of the Himalayas. He went to Kashmir in summer and created a series of gardens utilizing the ample water flowing from the melting snow in the mountains above, as in the Shalimar Bagh.

The Mughal laid out two types of gardens - the pleasure gardens and funerary gardens which were used for the deceased. The pleasure gardens were walled and were central to the Mughal notion of being one with the nature. They were commonly built along riverbanks and major travel routes. They were built to demonstrate power, for pleasure, ceremony, and events.

Chahar Bagh means four gardens, originally a Persian concept, became the basis of geometry of Mughal gardens. The four channels in Chahar Bagh symbolize the four flowing channels of water, honey, wine and milk in Jannah (paradise). Babur introduced Chahar Bagh layout for the gardens in Indian subcontinent and later his descendants refined it . It is composed of two intersecting lines (water bodies or pathways) which divide the whole garden into four equal quadrants, sometimes a monument or a platform is provided at the centre. Each quarter is further divided into four quadrants. 3

The development of the Mughal Gardens in India demonstrated territorial and cultural change. The early Mughal ruler altered the places and the landscape. When they were faced with unfamiliar land, they often turned to and reproduced the traditional building patterns of Kabul or Samarqan. 4

2. Phillip Jodidio, Aga Khan Garden (Geneva, Switzerland: Aga Khan Trust for Culture, 2018). 3. R Temple-Wright, Flowers And Gardens In India (India: Kessinger Publishing, 1902). 4. James L. Wescoat, Jr., ‘Landscapes of Conquest and Transformation: Lessons from the Earliest Mughal Gardens in India, 1526-1530’, Landscape Journal, University of Wisconsin Press, vol.10 (n.d.): 105–14.

Case Study – Shalimar Bagh Built By - Jahangir ; Date -1619 ; Location : Dal Lake, Kashmir

First laid out by the emperor Jahangir in 1619, Shalimar bagh combines a refinement of detail with an all prevailing peace and calm. It is often termed as ‘Paradise within Paradise’. As the Shalimar Bagh is around the Dal Lake in Kashmir, it adapts the chahar bagh typology to the mountainous topography by emphasizing the central water channel. At the head of the garden, the small river from the fields is diverted into the broad shallow canal leading to the wide rectangular basin, in which the main black marble pavilion is set, surrounded by water on all four sides. There are slight changes in level, to give a sense of containment. The central water canal of the garden (shah nahar) forms its main axis, uniting the three terraces with their regularly placed fountains and chinar (sycamore) tree-lined vistas.5 The main pavilion in the garden, acts as a center point from which all the open. The emperor would sit on his throne in the pavilion, above the water, and have views across all four vistas. The Mughal emperor sat in such an elevated seat for his daily durbar, or public audience, a practice essential to performing the political order and making visible relationships of power.

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

Figure 3. Plan of the Shalimar Bagh, Dal Lake, Kashmir by Author

PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK STUDENT VERSION

5. Sylvia Crowe, ed., The Gardens of Mughul India: A History and a Guide (London: Thames and Hudson, 1972).

Imperialism

With the invasion, a new form of garden design was evolved due to the harsh climate of India and its dusty winds. The Charbagh in India were adapted and re-learnt, and moved through space and time. The Mughal Gardens were used as a way to improve the micro- climate by using elements such as water channels, plants and trees.

Architecture and Art prospered under the Mughal rule until the mid-seventeenth century. Babur and his court, used the skills of the best Central Asian authors, artists and architects. The Persian Lyrcism and the Hindu Naturalism together created the best of Islamic Art. The Mughal Architecture and Art used traditional forms amd traditions form Eastern Iran, it also embodied local traditions and techniques of construction and decoration in their own designs. Craftsmen with skills of traditional forms such as figurative sculpture, worked on the decorative schemes with their Mughal conquers. Hence, the Islamic gardens and architecture were constructed using Indian modes of construction and created an original art whithin the Islamic thought. “Mughal gardens were designed to enhance the quality of the environment, to enrich the landscape, to provide recreation and repose, to symbolize authority, as well as to promote cultural and religious values and aspirations. Gardens and landscape architecture in Islamic societies, as in others, have been an important expression regarding ethical notions of stewardship, ecology, and the presence of beauty in the built environment.” 6 The women played a significant role in the gardens. They emerged as patrons of the Mughal gardens, specially during the rule of Jahangir from 1605-1627. The wives and queens would use the gardens and their monuments for personal and civic uses.

The Mughal rulers gained the support of their nobles through the assigning of territory as well as landscape design. 7 However, the landscape design defined a clear boundary between the Mughals and the local population. For example, in Agra, the gardens lay on the opposite side of the River Yamuna, and were enclosed by high walls.

Kesu - Butea Frondosa The Chaltah - Dillenia Speciosa

Figure 4. Slyvie Crowe, The Gardens of Mughul India: A History and a Guide, 1972.

Kesu - Butea Frondosa

6. Jodidio, Aga Khan Garden. 7. Wescoat, Jr., ‘Landscapes of Conquest and Transformation: Lessons from the Earliest Mughal Gardens in India, 1526-1530’.

Representation

After the 1580’s, urban and rural landscapes were prominently drawn in the Mughal Court Paintings. Mughal painting is a style of South Asian miniature painting that developed in the courts of the Mughal Emperors between the 16th and 19th centuries. The miniature paintings acts as a source for understanding the relationship between the audience and the garden. The landscapes, both urban and cultivated were drawn to represent an image of Mughal India that peaceful, economically prosperous, and cosmopolitan. 8

Mughal gardens were full of flowers fruits and trees. The memoirs of Babur and Jahangir are filled with details of their gardens. In paintings, spring flowers scatter the gardens, the chenar and cypress trees are abundant, the branches of fruit blossoms overhang the walls. Shade trees such as willow and poplar were used in the hills, where as palm, mango, tamarind trees were used in the planes. 9

The Baburnama, is the memoir of Babur which included a large number of landscape description . A close reading of it reveals that identity and alienation, and the need to create a sense of home in a foreign environment rather than unfamiliar environmental conditions, were the primary tensions within early Mughal garden design. From the representation in Mughal painting the design of the gardens can be clearly understood. It is represented as a place of camaraderie, poetry, and drinking, rather than just a religious paradise. Gardens were a place of poetry, drinking along with military planning and hunting. The gardens were also always enclosed within walls, hence separating them from the city. 10

A Ruler entertained by dancers in a Charbagh, Royal Institute of ChicagoFigure 5. Bhagwan, “The Garden of Fidelity, National Museum Of India, New Delhi, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/6/60/Babur_supervising_the_laying_out_of_the_Garden_of_ Fidelity-right-large.jpg. Figure 5. Nidha Mal, “Prince and Ladies in a Garden, n.d., https:// https://www.heritage-images.com/preview/2784177.

8. Mika Natif, Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters between Europe and Asia at the Courts of India, 1580-1630 (BRILL, 2018), https://doi. org/10.1163/9789004374997. 9. Crowe, The Gardens of Mughul India. 10. Eugenia W. Herbert, ‘The Gardens of Barrackpore’, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 27, no. 1 (January 2007): 31–60, https:// doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2007.10435456.

Conclusion

The Mughal gardens in India were built not just for aesthetic enjoyment but also for religious association and territorial control. The gardens acted as military centres as well as royal retreats. They were used for pleasure activities such as writing poetry, wrestling and enjoying scenic views. The Mughal rulers thought the Indian climate was t windy, hot, and dusty: hence the need for gardens and its waterworks. However, they were strongly influenced by the existing handicrafts and indigenous building patterns and used the local craftsmen and their skills. However, the “Char Baghs” were used to reinforce the formal Mughal identity into the landscape.

8. Mika Natif, Mughal Occidentalism: Artistic Encounters between Europe and Asia at the Courts of India, 1580-1630 (BRILL, 2018), https://doi. org/10.1163/9789004374997. 9. Crowe, The Gardens of Mughul India. 10. Eugenia W. Herbert, ‘The Gardens of Barrackpore’, Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 27, no. 1 (January 2007): 31–60, https:// doi.org/10.1080/14601176.2007.10435456.