LISA GOLOMBEK

THE OF : NEW PERSPECTIVES

The subject of the formal has attracted more vide very different experiences. The central pavilion attention in recent years than many of the more tradi­ remains in view from all parts of the garden. The pavil­ tional subjects of . It involves various ion at one end comes as a climax, its impact on the visitor domains of inquiry, not only the history of architecture, building like a cresecendo the closer one gets to it. The but also architectural ensembles and town planning, prince sitting in such a pavilion would have a grand view , hydraulics, patronage, and signification. of the avenue of approach, including the spectacular The Timurid garden of the late fourteenth and the fif­ pool at the crossing of the chief axes. For the river pal­ teenth century, in particular, has attracted attention ace, locating the pavilion at one end allowed for a view­ probably because of the widely held belief that it served ing of the river and its palatial structures, as well as a as a model for the great of sixteenth­ viewing of the building cluster when approached from and seventeenth-century , Agra, and Delhi. For the river. this reason, most studies of the Timurid garden have concentrated on morphological questions. l More Timur's Quadripartite Gardens recently, attention has turned to the social context of Textual and archaeological evidence, sifted through by these gardens and their possible meanings. The hypoth­ many scholars, indicates that the garden with a central­ eses emerging from such studies suggest several new per­ ized pavilion predominated in Timur's time (1370- spectives, relative to both the morphological and semi­ 1405) . In fact, none of the gardens attributed to Timur ological aspects of the Persian garden. are known to have followed the second model, nor do there seem to be any pre-Timurid examples. Five of Tim­ PLACEMENT OF THE PAVILION ur's gardens are described in some detail in Sharaf al­ Din Ali Yazdi's l,ajar-namd' and the report of the Spanish Morphological questions become especially disconcert­ envoy to Timur, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo.6 "Dawlatabad," ing when they have an impact on semiological ones. Tak­ one of the gardens built some distance from the city, has ing into consideration those "Persianate" gardens which been identified and excavated. These descriptions are survive, that is, the gardens of the Mughals, the most worth reviewing because they suggest a certain progres­ common form has a major fourfold division with a pavil­ sion in the development of the early Timurid garden. ion in the center. Pools are found at the interseciion(s) of a grid of water channels. Within this repertory the ar­ Bagh-i Bihisht ( Garden): Built by Timur's order rangement found in the Taj complex, with its pa­ to the west of Samarqand in 1378, the Bagh-i Bihisht vilion at the end of the , appears aberrant combined twelve existing gardens ("as many as the and has led some scholars to seek a semiological expla­ zodiac") into one. A lofty pavilion (qa$r) was erected in nation.2 Others point to the river palaces in Agra which it, but there is no indication of the pavilion's siting.7 do have pavilions at the end as nearby models for the .3 The question then becomes, why did ShahJahan Bagh-i Shimal (Garden of the North): The Bagh-i Shimal choose this form of garden over the predominant form already existed north of the city when Timur, in the in other works sponsored by himself and his predeces­ spring of 1397, set up his royal tent there and ordered sors? While it is not my intent to answer this question, it the building ofa palace (qa$r).8 For a month and a half draws attention to the availability of two models for the he resided there, while the palace was under construc­ formal garden. The question I will deal with is, since the tion, calling upon the engineers and architects of Fars, visual culture of the Mughals was inspired by that of their Iraq, Azerba)jan, Baghdad, and other places for the pur­ ancestors, the Timurids, which of these gardens repre­ pose; they drew its plan ("with the pen of understanding sents the "classical" Timurid chahar-bagh?4 The two pro- on the slate of skill") 9 and when Timur had accepted it, 138 LISA GOLOMBEK astrologers ascertained the favorable moment for con­ struction to begin, and work started in Jumada II 799 (March 1397). He assigned the supervision of the con­ struction of each of the four corners to his amirs, under whom he appointed the international masters. They built solid foundations, and in each corner they set up pillars of marble brought from . The surface of the walls was decorated with lapis and gold, surpassing "the Artang of Mani and picture room of China." The floors were paved with marble. Outside and inside the walls were revetted with glazed tiles (kiishi-kiiri): "Paradise , abounds in the lapis of its inscriptions/Inscribed is: ,, 'Long may you have power and existence'." \ , , , It is difficult to imagine how four different supervisors '" , could work on a single building of the type characteristic \ \ of Timur's other gardens (the cross-in square, or cruci­ \ \ form, pavilion d.escribed below). Perhaps this structure \ was a large courtyard-centered building like Timur's pal­ TO: Qanl-tu~h (ca. 18km ) ace at Shahrisabz. The reference to an abundance of & Shahrisab7. ( C:.I. 60km) Tabriz marble columns would fit with a colonnade around a courtyard. Alternatively, although this com­ Fig. 1. Samarqand and environs. Sites: (A) citadel; (B) ; (C) ment follows the mention of the pavilion, the "four cor­ ofTimur ("Bibi Khanum"); (0) Gur-i Amir; (E) ners" may refer back to the garden itself, with four sep­ (pre-Mongol town site). Gardens: (1) Oilgusha; (2) Oawlatabad; (3) arate structures, one in each corner of the enclosure. Chanar; (4) Buland; (5) maydan/ Chini-khaneh; (6) Shimal (a: The text does not give the specific location of the palace Pugachenkova placement; b: Golombek placement); (7) Naw (a: Pugachenkova placement; b: Golombek placement); (8) Bihisht; within the garden. (9) Naqsh-i Jahan. (Sites mentioned in 6a-7a are based on G.A. Pougatchenkova, Chefs-d'Oeuvre d'architecture de l"Asie Centrale XJVe­ Bagh-i Dilgusha (Heart's Delight Garden). Descriptions XVe siecle [Paris: Unesco, 1981J.) of the Bagh-i Dilgusha are far more detailed than of the others.1O It was built in 1396 at the south edge of the Kan-i complex geometric pattern was something new to Gil meadows (on the east side of Samarqand; see map, Samarqand, coming from Fars and Iraq as did the fig. 1). The garden occupied a square area 1,500 gaz on a mosaic faience which occurs here and on contempora­ side. If the gaz used for the Ahmad Yasavi shrinell con­ neous buildings at the Shah-i Zinda.'4 A long poem men­ temporary with this is 60.6cm., the garden measured tions some of the fruits and found in the garden. 909 m. square. One gate stood in the middle (dar miyiin) In the middle of the garden they built a pavilion consist­ of each side. The vaults of the gates were filled with ing of three vaults'S and a . The poem which fol­ , revetted in glazed tile (kiishi-kiiri). Each cor­ lows mentions "marble columns at the edges of its cor­ ner had a tower, decorated with tile (kiish£). In the Cal­ ners/foundations. .. ." According to Clavijo (see cutta manuscript these are referred to as dove towers. l2 below), the three vaults formed arms of a cross, the Most intriguing is Yazdi's description of the layout of the fourth of which was probably an entrance . A dome garden itself: "He [TimurJ divided the open space of the was situated at the crossing. The geometrical arrange­ garden geometrically into square walkways and hexago­ ment of the garden itself may have been new to the nal and triangular chamans (planting beds). He ordered Samarqand region, but the placement of the pavilion at poplars to be planted along the edges of the walkways the center of the square enclosure (as indicated also by and the hexagons and triangles of their borders to be ar­ Clavijo) follows the early Timurid pattern. ranged with various fruit trees and diverse trees bearing flowers and fruit." The result must have been something Bagh-i Naw (New Garden). The Zafar-niima does not re­ like the geometric pattern of chamans found in the old fer to this garden by name, but it describes the Bagh-i Rajput gardens at Amber.'3 Engineers from every coun­ Naw in detail, as does Clavijo. Situated south of the try were called upon. Perhaps the garden based on a Bagh-i Shimal, its construction had begun before the