Mughal Palace Gardens from Babur to Shahjahan (1526-1648)
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EBBAKOCH MUGHAL PALACE GARDENS FROM BABUR TO SHAHJAHAN (1526-1648) Recent research has shed new light on the context, func ing to Khwandamir, Humayun (r. 1530-43; 1555-56) tion, and meaning of the early Mughal garden. James planned to built for his new residence called Dinpanah Wescoat persuasively argues that Babur (ruled in India (begun in 1533) at Delhi (the present Purana QilCa), a 1526-30) built his gardens in India outside the citadels palace of seven stories which was to be surrounded by or fortress palaces of pre-Mughal rulers in deliberate gardens and orchards, but we do not know how much of opposition to them, as symbols of the appropriation of this project was carried out.9 When Humayan retumed land and "royal emblems of territorial control."! For to Delhi after being ousted by the rulers of the Sur Catherine Asher the gardens of Babur "had a signifi dynasty, he used the small fortress of Salimgarh as a sub cance beyond mere territorial conquest and the intro urban retreat and place of recreation. Salimgarh had duction of a new ordered aesthetic"; she shows that they been constructed by the Surs as an island in the Jamna also had funerary-dynastic and religious associations (1545-54), and, after Humayun's reign until the con and, in the last analysis, were conceived as "a visual struction of Shahjahanabad (1639-48) the Mughals metaphor for Babur's ability to control and order the used it as their residence whenever they came to Delhi arid Indian plains and ultimately its population."2 Since (fig. 17).10 We do not know whether it had gardens. Wescoat and Asher agree that the new Mughal gardens In an urban context attention to the development of took the place offortresses as centers ofroyal power and gardens appears to have been directed primarily to that, for Babur, they had little to do with the sophisti cated paradise symbolism for which later Mughal gar dens became famous,3 we may weIl ask how the opposi ~~ ~:.~-=- ----- tion between garden and citadel was eventually --~\ resolved. In the grand synthesis of ShahJahan's fortress ~ palaces, the fusion of palace and garden became - as we know from Amir Khusraw's all too often quoted 4 ~ verses - a metaphor of paradise here on earth, the a ideal dwelling of the Mughal ruler. How did the garden n n make its way into the palace? What form did it take o o ~ there?5 And did assuming the symbolism of paradise necessarilyexclude a political message? o ! <> First of aIl, we have to state that at Agra, where the <> <:) story of the Mughal palace garden began in 1526, rela / 1 - tions between fort and garden were not entirely an tag l a onistic. True, the new gardens laid out by Babur and his j' ~ ~~ o followers were on the other side of the river Jamna, ",== J~ lb==,"",-1k=~ opposite the fort of the vanquished Lodi sultans which @Ebt><> KOCH had been taken over by Babur (fig. 1). But even before Babur built his new chahar bagh (or char bagh) 6 named Fig. 1. Line drawing of a map of Agra inscribed in devanagari Hasht Bihisht on the bank of the river7 he had ordered script. Early 18th century.Jaipur, Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II the construction of an elaborate step-well complex Museum, cat. no. 126: 3. Ram Bagh (Bagh-i Nur Mshan), 4. Zahara Bagh (Bagh-iJahanara), 9. Tomb ofIctimad al-Dawla, which provided water for a garden inside the fort. 8 How 15. Second Chahar Bagh Padshahi, 16. Chahar Bagh Padshahi ever, we leam nothing more about this garden or any (Bagh-i Hasht Bihisht?), 17. Mahtab Bagh, 18. Taj Mahal, 42. other palace garden of the early Mughal period. Accord- Red Fort. (Drawing: R.A. Barraud and E. Koch) 144 EBBA KOCH areas outside the fortress-palaces. The riverfront-garden the one who teIls us most about Akbar's building pro scheme of Agra seems to have been adopted to a certain jects, mentions no gardens in his description of the new extent in the new residential quarters of the Mughals at Agra fort, but remarks on its excellent architectural fea Lahore, and, in Akbar's time (r. 1556-1605), also at tures of red stone and the paved surface of its grounds,15 Delhi.ll which the architectural evidence bears out. The two More importance, however, was given to the develop complexes of the Agra palace that date from Akbar's ment ofMughal Agra as a riverbank city, because in 1558 time, the zantina courtyards named today Akbari Akbar had moved the imperial headquarters from Delhi Mahal16 and, rather misleadingly, Jahangiri Mahal, are to Agra and it had again become the main capital of the built not around gardens but around paved courtyards. Mughal Empire.12 From contemporary descriptions it is The riverside courtyard of the Jahangiri Mahal, how evident that Akbar's Agra already looked very much like ever, contains a few elements ofwater architecture (fig. it does in the early-eighteenth-century map in the Jaipur 2).17 In praising the fortress palace of Agra, Qandahari City Palace Museum (fig. 1).13 The Mughal city consisted resorts only once to a paradise-garden metaphor18 and of bands of gardens lining both banks of the river otherwise uses architectural imagery; he describes the Jamna. Akbar's fort, constructed beginning in 1564, was fort as a large city (mi$r-i jtimiC) and a bazaar of elegance positioned in this urban scheme like a garden (fig. and beauty.19 1/42).14 But there is still no mention of gardens inside Qandahari describes the architectural qualities of the the Mughal palace. Akbar's historian Qandahari, who is palace of Fatehpur Sikri in similar terms.20 Though in Fig. 2. Agra fort. Jahangiri Mahal, 1564-1570's. East (riverside) court with ornamental pool and water channelleading to the northern arched niche (1983) .