Shalimar Bagh

A subtle air of leisure and repose, a romantic indefinable spell, pervades the royal Shalimar: this leafy garden of dim vistas, shallow terraces, smooth sheets of falling water, and wide canals, with calm reflections broken only by the stepping stones across the streams.

While the recent history and development of the Mughal types of gardens is credited to Emperor Jahangir of theMughal Dynasty, the ancient history of the garden that existed here is traced to the 2^nd century when it was built during the reign of Pravarsena II. Praversena II founded the city of Srinagar and ruled in Kashmir from 79 AD to 139 AD. He had built a cottage for his stay at the northeastern corner of the Dal Lake and had named it as Shalimar (‘Shalimar’ in Sanskit means "Abode or Hall of Love”). It is at this location that Emperor Jahangir built his celebrated Shalimar Bagh, his dream project to please his queen. During the Mughal period in particular, Emperor Jahangir and his wife Nur Jahan were so enamoured of Kashmir that during summer they moved to Srinagar with their full court entourage from Delhi, at least 13 times. Shalimar Bagh was their imperial summer residence, and also the Royal Court.

The layout of the garden is an adaptation of another Islamic garden layout known as the Chahar Bagh in Persia. This garden built on a flat land on a square plan with four radiating arms from a central location as the water source, could not be exactly replicated to the hilly conditions in the Kashmir valley.

Thus, modifications to suit the location were designed, which involved the main channel running through the garden axially from top to the lowest point. This central channel, known as the Shah Nahar, is the main axis of the garden. It runs through three terraces. This layout saved on radial arms and the shape became rectangular, instead of a square plan of the Chahar Bagh.

The garden was linked to the open Dal Lake water through a canal of about 1 mile (1.6 km) length and 12 yards (11 m) in width that ran through swampy quagmire. Willow groves and rice terraces fringed the lake edge. Broad green paths bordered the lake with rows of chinar trees. The garden was laid in trellised walkways lined by avenues of aspen trees planted at 2 feet (0.61 m) interval.

The first terrace is a public garden or the outer garden ending in the Diwan-e-Aam (public audience hall). In this hall, a small black marble throne was installed over the waterfall.

The second terrace garden along the axial canal, slightly broader, has two shallow terraces. The Diwan-i-Khas (the Hall of Private Audience), which was accessible only to the noblemen or guests of the court, now derelict, is in its centre. However, the carved stone bases and a fine platform surrounded by fountains are still seen. The royal bathrooms are located on the north-west boundary of this enclosure. The fountain pools of the Diwan-i Khas, the Diwan-i-Amm, and in turn, the Zenana terraces are supplied in succession.

In the third terrace, the axial water channel flows through the Zenana garden, which is flanked by the Diwan-i-Khas and chinar trees. At the entrance to this terrace, there are two small pavilions or guard rooms (built in Kashmir style on stone plinth) that is the restricted and controlled entry zone of the royal harem. Shahajahan built a baradari of black marble, called the Black Pavilion in the zenana garden. It is encircled by a fountain pool that receives its supply from a higher terrace. A double cascade falls against a low wall carved with small niches (chini khanas), behind the pavilion. Two smaller, secondary water canals lead from the Black Pavilion to a small baradari. Above the third level, two octagonal pavilions define the end wall of the garden.

The Shalimar Bagh is well known for chini khanas, or arched niches, behind garden waterfalls. They are a unique feature in the Bagh. These niches were lighted at night with oil lamps, which gave a fairy tale appearance to the water falls. However, now the niches hold pots of flower pots that reflect their colors behind the cascading water.

Another unusual architectural feature mentioned is about the doors of the Baradari. In the garden complex, the Baradari had four exquisite doors made of stones supported by pillars. It is conjectured that these stone doors were ruins from old temples that were demolished by Shahajahan. The garden also provided large water troughs where a variety of fountains were fixed.

Even in later years, during Maharaja’s rule, the gardens were well maintained and continue to be so even now as it is one of the prominent visitor attractions around the Dal Lake.

The garden is considered to be very beautiful during the autumn and spring seasons due to the colour change in leaves of the famed Chinar trees.

The gardens were the inspiration for other gardens of the same name, notably the Shalimar Bagh, Delhi in Delhi (built in 1653, which now also has an upscale colony) and Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, Pakistan built by Emperor Shah Jahan in 1641.

Mughal Gardens.

"Islamic art was the very antithesis of Hindu art; for Hindu adornment was individualistic, irregular and symbiotic, while Islamic decoration was mathematical, continuous and abstract."

India was the last of the three countries to experience the transformation to Islam and wasn't invaded by Muslims until 1200 when they united the region that was previously ruled by independent city states.

The Mughal dynasty was founded by the Emperor Babur in 1527 and lasted until 1857, producing a number of visionary and charismatic kings whose contribution to art, architecture and horticulture were magnificent. Mughal architecture is a synthesis between Islamic and Hindu architectural styles prevalent in the Indian sub-continent. Mughal architecture in India needs no preliminary introduction with regards to its grandeur, magnificence, lavishness, colossal in every attempt, monumental in proportions and meticulous in every work of art ever chiseled upon any Indian monument. The Mughals beginning from Babur and his advent from Persia, with the near culmination during the times of Aurangzeb, with little help from the later Mughals, indeed had been splendid and resplendent in every attempt they had made in relation to administration and its associated elements. The domain of `garden architecture` under the umbrella of Mughal architecture is one such area, which have not gained much of the limelight and veneration, with much of them perhaps lost to anonymity. The architectural geometry and its minute details, with special stress upon other architectures and its framework - Mughal architectural particulars of the gardens ever grounded in India, is not an element which can be captured by the naked eye. As a consequential answer, it can be stated that, gardens in Mughal architecture do demand a special space amidst the other imposing monumental builds.

Mughal garden design derives primarily from the medieval Islamic Garden, although there are nomadic influences that come from the Mughals’ Turkish-Mongolian ancestry. Its essential features included running water (perhaps the most important element) and a pool to reflect the beauties of sky and garden; trees of various sorts, some to provide shade merely, and others to produce fruits; flowers, colorful and sweet-smelling; grass, usually growing wild under the trees; birds to fill the garden with song; the whole cooled by a pleasant breeze. The garden might include a raised hillock at the center, reminiscent of the mountain at the center of the universe in cosmological descriptions, and often surmounted by a pavilion or palace”. The Turkish-Mongolian elements of the Mughal garden are primarily related to the inclusion of tents, carpets and canopies reflecting nomadic roots. Tents indicated status in these societies, so wealth and power were displayed through the richness of the fabrics as well as by size and number.

Mughal gardens and their architecture possess a splendid and fragrant proud history. Indeed, some the gardenia instances of the Mughals in Kashmir or Delhi, do possess much popularity and respect owing to their stretch of being virtually unlimited in the length and breadth of flora and fauna. Gardens in Mughal architecture redefine the advent of overspreading gardens, slender streams flowing by all through the middle of the garden, the rare arrival of flora from the Persian landscape, the rainbow-tinted flowering of exceptional flowers dispersing their scent and fragrance in the nearby lands, the pastures of exotic-ness, the conception of being amidst Eden suddenly upon earth, or the umpteen other unique aspects that one can imagine. Mughal gardens and its architecture deserves thundering applaud from every quarter of the universe, with the emperors practically thinking in heavenly proportions to make out-of-this-world constituents a reality to human beings in India.

The Mughals were obsessed with symbol and incorporated it into their gardens in many ways. The standard Quranic references to paradise were in the architecture, layout, and in the choice of plant life; but more secular references, including numerological and zodiacal significances connected to family history or other cultural significance, were often juxtaposed. The numbers eight and nine were considered auspicious by the Mughals and can be found in the number of terraces or in garden architecture such as octagonal pools. It is acknowledged that even before the battle of Panipat, Babur had considered Punjab rightfully his, and since earlier it had been conquered by his legendary ancestor, Timur.

The garden, which the first Mughal had designed himself, was completed in 1528-29. Although it no longer survives, literary reports indicate that Babur`s first Indian garden in Punjab was built around a natural spring and that the garden itself was situated in a narrow mountain valley, a terrain close to that of Babur`s own Kabul. The char bagh mentioned earlier was the most sublime and most praiseworthy of Mughal garden`s architectural aspect, which was ever grounded by Babur. Since his arrival to India, the char bagh style was the most complied with and abided by the succeeding dynasties that have ever ruled India, a practice which is continued even today. Char bagh by Babur had redefined Mughal gardens and its architecture for the successors to come, only to make India magnificent by filling empty places up with trees, plants and more of everything green.

Babur and his Mughal plan of garden architecture was such that he had issued orders of regular, symmetrical gardens and orchards which needed to be laid out in all large cities. Such four-part, ordered Mughal gardens and its architectural plan represented a Timurid tradition. After Babur, Humayun who had ascended the throne was much to occupy to consolidate his Empire from Sher Shah, which made him kind of neglect the Mughal architectural scenario, which thus rested in the hands of his son, Emperor Akbar. Akbar is not however not much legendary to have lent life to any such celebrated gardenia or its strict Mughal architecture, which, on the other hand, had looked towards the future with Jahangir. Jahangir, the man with an exceedingly artistic bent of mind, was legendary to possess immense regard and respect for gardens and garden settings. He is also known to have rewarded most of the architects with premium richness. Just after returning to Agra in 1619, he had discovered much delight in witnessing the Gul Afshan garden, probably the same garden later owned by Nur Jahan and renamed the Nur Afshan Bagh. Huge sums of money and a smooth cash flow was guaranteed by this emperor, who was so much dedicated and ardent to the aesthetic side of life that Mughal garden architecture truly was ably carried forward after the arrival of Babur.

Emperor Jahangir is an absolute legend in connection with gardens in Mughal architecture. The captivating properties, never seen before elements, the exhaustive renovation work done to already built gardens, the disciplined supply of water flow in all the gardens are just some of the brilliance of every Mughal garden`s architecture, which was patronised by the emperor himself, under special guarantee. Just like his son Shah Jahan, Jahangir also had too much favoured to give birth to gardens in the verdant scenario of Kashmir. Jahangir did give special attention to gardens in the valley south of Srinagar, in Kashmir. Shah Jahan, as well his architectural plannings of Mughal gardens, deserves to be specially mentioned. It was Shah Jahan as the man who was of the habit to scout out sites to give life to luxuriant garden architecture, adhering strictly to Mughal norms. The emperor had a life-long interest in the construction of superbly well-ordered gardens. Many of these had indeed also served as the setting for major structural works, for example the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, legendary today as the Taj Mahal, or Jahangir`s tomb in Lahore. Palaces of Shah Jahan also had incorporated gardens into their layout. Other gardens of Mughal architecture, however, were developed independently of tombs and palaces. Royal structures had enhanced these gardens, but they were not the sole reason for the gardens` existence.

There are two types of Mughal Gardens, one is like park enclosures surrounding the principal monumental structure especially Mughal tomb such as Taj Garden at Agra, and in other type there are no principal monumental structure such as Nishat Garden at Srinagar, Kashmir.

At the Taj Garden, the tomb building is placed at the farthest end. The tomb garden and subsidiary buildings are enclosed by a broad wall with octagonal pavilions at each end and a monumental entrance gate in the centre of southern side. When the Emperor built the Taj, the garden was full of trees, such as fruit trees, cypress, palm trees and flowering trees. The flowers were not what we see today, but species of narcissus, iris, tulip and rose. It was conceived as Garden of Eden or Bagh–i–Adam with flowers, trees and water channels. To – day it has few trees, a lawn and regimented flower beds not of Mughal but of 19^th century of British origin. The formal garden is based on Char Bagh or four proportional garden plan. The use of water is the most remarkable character of Mughal Garden. Shah Jahan built a pool in the centre to reflect the perfection of Taj Mahal. From the central, elevated pool Haus–I- Kausar, the water channels flow in four directions dividing the garden at right angles into four. The inclination and level of the garden is carefully designed to keep the water continuously flowing form Jamuna river behind the Taj.

The second type of Mughal Gardens was also designed as a pleasure resort and picnic spots, but without a tomb, a monumental structure, for example Nishat Garden at Srinagar, Kashmir. Here the full advantage of the slope of hills is made to construct flow of water in pools, fountains, water channels etc. thus forming an enchanting water – garden. The gardens are laid out on regular and suitable forms and divided into smaller squares or rectangular.

The gardens are with no monuments as tomb gardens. Here shelters, loggias, kiosks are provided to create a central focal point in the scheme. These earlier formal gardens of Versailles and Mughal gardens were relevant for the particular time and culture when they were laid out.

Yet, there existed reason enough for gardens in Mughal architecture to receive the most valuable of attention under every proficient Mughal ruler to have existed in India.