Mughal palace gardens from Babur to Shah Jahan (1526-1648)

Muqarnas

Volumn 14, Issue , 1997, Pages 143-165

  Koch, Ebba ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 62949157647     PISSN: 07322992     EISSN: 09210326     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/1523242     Document Type: Review

References (93)

1. James L. Wescoat, Jr., "Picturing an Early Mughal Garden," Asian Art 11, 4 (Fall, 1989): 59-79, in particular p. 76
2. idem, "Landscapes of Conquest and Transformation: Lessons from the Earliest Mughal Gardens in India, 1526-30," Landscape Journal 10 (1991): 105-14
3. idem, "Gardens versus Citadels: The Territorial Context of Early Mughal Gardens," Garden History: Issues, Approaches, Methods, Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 13, ed. John Dixon Hunt (Washington, D.C., 1992), pp. 331-58
4. Catherine B. Asher, "Babur and the Timurid Chār Bāgh: Use and Meaning," in Mughal Architecture: Pomp and Ceremonies= Environmental Design 1991, no. 1-2, p. 53
5. eadem, Architecture of Mughal India (Cambridge, 1992), p. 37
6. On the latter point, see Westcoat, "Picturing an Early Mughal Garden," pp. 75, 77
7. idem, "Landscapes of Conquest and Transformation," p. 105
8. idem, "Garden versus Citadels," p. 335
9. Asher, "Babur and the Timurid Chār Bāgh," p. 47
10. For the problem of the Mughal chār bāgh, see most recently Ebba Koch, "The Mughal Waterfront Garden," Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires: Theory and Design, ed. Attilio Petruccioli, Muqarnas Supplements, vol. 7 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp. 140-60
11. The primordial Agra chār bāgh mentioned by Babur and the Hasht Bihisht were one and the same garden. See Zayn Khān, Tabaqāt-i Bāburī, trans. S.H. Askari, annot. B.P. Ambastha (Delhi, 1982), p. 157
12. cAbd al-Rahcombining dot belowīm, 3 vols. (Calcutta, 1873-86), 1: 105
13. Muhcombining dot belowammad Amīn or Amīnā-yi Qazvīnī, Bādshāh nāma, British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections (henceforth abbreviated to BL), Pers. ms. Or. 173, fol. 26a (Pers. pagination)
14. Babur tells us that "in any empty space inside the fort, which was between Ibrahim's residence and the ramparts, I ordered a large chambered-well (wain) to be made." We learn that this well was actually a whole building complex consisting of a large three-storied stepwell, a smaller well, "fitted with a wheel, by means of which water is carried along the ramparts to the high-garden" (bāghcha-i bālā), a stone building (?), and a mosque. See Żahīr al-Dīn Muhammad Bābur, Bābur nāma, trans. A.S. Beveridge (1921; rpt. New Delhi, 1970), pp. 532-33
15. Zayn Khān (Tabaqāt-i Bāburī, pp. 161-63) seems to confound this well with the one built in the Hasht Bihisht garden. It could, however, also be an error in the manuscript copy
16. See also James L. Wescoat, Jr., "Gardens of Invention and Exile: The Precarious Context of Mughal Garden Design during the Reign of Humayun (1530-1556)," Journal of Garden History 10, 1 (1990): 106-16, in particular p. 109. That the fortress palace contained gardens, at least after Humayun retook it from the Surs in 1555, can be conjectured from a remark of the Jesuit Father Montserrate who described the Mughal Empire in the early 1580's. Monserrate says that Humayun fell to his death from the roof of his palace hall into a garden (hortus)
17. See Father Anthony Monserrate S.J., Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius, or The First Jesuit Mission to Akbar, Latin text, ed. Rev. H. Hosten, S.J., in Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 3/9 (1914): 561
18. Eng. trans. J.S. Hoyland and annotated by S.N. Banerjee, Commentary of Father Monserrate (London, 1922), p. 34
19. See Ebba Koch, "Shah Jahan's Visits to Delhi prior to 1648: New Evidence of Ritual Movement in Urban Mughal India," Mughal Architecture: Pomp and Ceremonies= Environmental Design, 1991, no. 1-2, pp. 18-29
20. and, for the discussion of the topic in a wider context: eadem, "The Delhi of the Mughals prior to Shahjahanabad as Reflected in the Patterns of Imperial Visits," Art and Culture: Felicitation Volume in Honour of Professor S. Nurul Hasan, ed. Ahsan Jan Qaisar and Som Prakash Verma (Jaipur, 1993), in particular pp. 7-12
21. For this and the following, see Koch, "Mughal Waterfront Garden" (see n. 6 above)
22. Abu'l Fażl, Akbar nāma, vol. 2, Persian text, pp. 76-77; trans., pp. 117-18
23. Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, Jaipur, no. 126. The map, on cloth measuring 294x 272cm, inscribed in devanāgar̄ is so far the best document available on Mughal Agra. It was first published by Chandramani Singh, "Early 18th-Century Painted City Maps on Cloth," in Facets of Indian Art, ed. R. Skelton et al. (London, 1986), pp. 185-92, figs. 7, 8
24. and, with a color illustration, by Susan Gole, Indian Maps and Plans: From the Earliest Times to the Advent of European Surveys (New Delhi, 1989), pp. 200-1. I am grateful to the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum for the permission to photograph and publish the map and to Dr. B.M. Jawalia, Keeper of Manuscripts for assisting me in its reading
25. Useful general information on the Agra fort is in M. Ashraf Husain, An Historical Guide to the Agra Fort Based on Contemporary Records (Delhi, 1937)
26. For a recent brief assessment and a plan based on new measurements, see Ebba Koch, Mughal Architecture: An Outline of Its History and Development (1526-1858) (Munich, 1991), pp. 53-55
27. cArshī (Rampur, 1382/1962), p. 144-49
28. trans, in Fatehpur-Sikri: A Sourcebook, ed. Michael Brand and G.D. Lowry (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pp. 290-95
29. cf. the somewhat loose translation by Tasneem Ahmad, Tā'rīkh- i Akbarī: An Annotated Translation with Introduction (Delhi, 1993), pp. 180-84
30. R. Froude Tucker, "The Akbari Mahall in Agra Fort," in Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report (henceforth cited as · ASIAR) 1907-8, pp. 8-22; for the paved courtyard, see p. 12
31. A hcombining dot belowawż (pool) with a lobed in-and-out pattern is sunk in the center of the U-shaped paved courtyard; it is linked by a narrow channel to a miniature pool, also lobed but in the shape of a bowl, in front of the arched niche of the northern wing of the courtyard. The plan referred to in note 14 is much reduced, but the pool and the channel can be made out below no. 4. See also William G. Klingelhofer, "The Jahangiri Mahal of the Agra Fort: Expression and Experience in Early Mughal Architecture," Muqarnas 5 (1988): 153-69, figs. 3, 14, 19; he does not, however, discuss these features. Below this "garden court" is a tah khāna (underground room) with another pool
32. trans. Brand and Lowry, Sourcebook, p. 292. The translation of Tasneem Ahmad (p. 181) gives only a shortened version
33. Qandahārī, Persian text, p. 147
34. Similarly Montserrate (Commentarius, Latin text., pp. 561-62, trans, p. 34) compared the Agra fort to a great city which contained, in addition to the palace buildings, also "the mansions of his [Akbar's] nobles, the magazines, the treasury, the arsenal, the stable of the cavalry, and the shops and huts of drug-sellers, barbers, and all manner of common workmen." He does not mention any gardens
35. He mentions no palace gardens but says that basātīn and bāghāt were to be constructed at the periphery and center of the city; see Persian text. p. 150
36. trans, in Brand and Lowry, Sourcebook, pp. 36-37
37. For plans and illustration, see Attilio Petruccioli, Fathpur Sikri: la città del sole e delle acque (Rome, 1988), pp. 126-33
38. For brief references to the gardens, see the seminal work on Fatehpur Sikri by Edmund W. Smith, The Moghul Architecture of Fathpur-Sikri, 4 vols. (1894-98; rpt. Delhi, 1985), 1:28-29, pl. ci; 3: 45
39. S.A.A. Rizvi and Vincent J.A. Flynn, Fathpur Sikri (Bombay, 1975), pp. 41, 57. Scholars have perhaps refrained from discussing diese gardens because it is not quite certain to what extent their present shape is the result of restorations by the Archaeological Survey of India which may have overemphasized the plantation components (see nn. 24, 26 below). Several areas of the palace such as the courts to the north and to the west of the Panch Mahal indicated on Smith's plan A in vol. 3 as a "quadrangle" have been planted since then
40. Muhammad Ashraf Husain, A Guide to Fatehpur Sikri (Delhi, 1937), p. 21, refers to it as "an open space which once formed a garden." Since all the plans of Fatehpur Sikri published subsequently were derived from Smith, they do not feature details of the garden either
41. See, for instance, Rizvi and Flynn, Fathpur-Sikri, plan opposite p. 23, where the garden is inscribed as Daulat Khana Garden (palace garden); cf. p. 41. The drawings of Attilio Petruccioli in Fathpur Sikri, which are based on new measurements, show the inner organization of the garden only on some of the plans of the palace (pp. 60, 128, 142) with several of its extant features omitted. He does not discuss the gardens
42. Smith, Architecture of Fathpur-Sikri, 1: 28-29, pl. ci (photograph), vol. 3, pl. B (plan)
43. Rizvi and Flynn (Fathpur Sikri, p. 57, plan opposite p. 45) describe it as a "zenana garden". In these publications the garden features only on overall plans of larger areas of the palace; see also Petruccioli, plans on pp. 126,128,129,142. Our fig. 5 presents the first detailed plan of the garden
44. Architecture of Fathpur Sikri, 1: 28
45. Jahāngīr, Tūzuk (now called the Jahāngīr nāma) (henceforth cited as Jahangir), Pers. text., ed. Sayyid Ahcombining dot belowmad Khan (Aligarh, 1864), p. 299; trans. Alexander Rogers, ed. Henry Beveridge, 2 vols in one (1909-14; rpt. Delhi, 1968), 2:145
46. Jahangir, Pers. text, p. 302; trans., 2: 150-51
47. Cf. Asher, Architecture of Mughal India, p. 124
48. It is not quite clear what Jahangir meant by şuffa; it is not a term used by Shah Jahan's historians and poets, who are our prime source for Mughal architectural terminology. According to Lisa Golombek and Donald Wilber ( The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan [Princeton N.J., 1988], pp. 73-74, 470), it refers in the Timurid context to an iwan (arched niche), or platform
49. On this point, see also Koch, "Delhi of the Mughals," p. 18, n. 62. In Shahjahani architectural terminology, a garden terrace would be a martaba and a platform a chabūtra or kursī
50. c, (spelled dir'a by Jahangir) is a thorny problem over which much ink has been spilled. For the most recent assessment, see Peter Alford Andrews, "Misaha: 2. Muslim India" in EI, 2nd ed., 7: 138-40, with further literature. One of the reasons why it has been so difficult to come to definite conclusions seems to be that modern scholars base their efforts at reconstruction on the assumption that the gaz was used with great precision, whereas in fact craftsmen appear to have been more generous. The two gaz lengths most commonly used in the imperial architecture of the Mughals were 83.36cm or 32.82inches, and, in the period of Shah Jahan, 81-82cm, ideally 81.28cm, or 32 inches. The platform in the garden was thus probably either ca. 26.67m or 26m square; see also n. 66 below
51. See e.g., Attilio Petruccioli, "Gardens and Religious Topography in Kashmir," Mughal Architecture: Pomp and Ceremonies= Environmental Design, 1991, no. 1, pp. 66, 73 n. 4; he publishes a plan (undated? 18th century?) of Srinagar in the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, Jaipur, cat. no. 120, which includes a free view of the Hari Parbat and its buildings
52. The traces of painted floral motifs and scrolls are mainly preserved on the lower part of the walls of the interior of the central room of the building. Above the dado remain a few wall niches arranged in several registers. Those in the register just above the dado zone have a shouldered arched profile; the upper registers include niches with multilobed arched profiles. This form of wall decoration was common in Jahangir's time. Before I discovered the traces of the paintings in March 1986 I had also assumed that Jahangir's garden and its building did not survive. See Ebba Koch, "Jahangir and the Angels: Recently Discovered Wallpaintings under European Influence in the Fort of Lahore," India and the West, Proceedings of a seminar dedicated to the memory of Hermann Goetz, South Asian Studies 15, ed. Joachim Deppert (Delhi, 1983), p. 192, n. 63
53. cAmal-i Scombining dot belowālihcombining dot below, 2: 30
54. cInāyat Khān, Shāh Jahān Nāma, trans. A.R. Fuller, rev. and ed. W.E. Begley and Z.A. Desai (New Delhi, 1990), p. 268
55. For the Mughal adoption of the Indian practice of jharōka-i darshan, see most recently Catherine B. Asher, "Sub-Imperial Palaces: Power and Authority in Mughal India," and Gülni Necipoǧlu, "Framing die Gaze in Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Palaces," both in Gülru Necipoǧlu, ed., Pre-Modern Islamic Palaces, special issue of Ars Orientalis 23 (1993), in particular pp. 282-83, 314-16
56. It is difficult to bring Finch's description of the Lahore fort in line with the existing buildings, because the alterations made afterwards by Jahangir himself, by Shah Jahan, and by later builders have changed its architecture since Finch saw it. It is, however, quite possible that he is referring to Jahangir's Quadrangle when he speaks of "another moholl [female palace], ... contrived into sixteen severall great lodgings [in the courtyard wings?].... In the midst stands a goodly gallery for the King to sit in [not preserved; was this Jahangir's Khwabgah replaced with that built by Shah Jahan in the middle of the riverfront, as discussed below?].... Before this gallery [towards the river?] is a faire paved court, with stone gratings and windows alongst the waters side; at the end [what might refer to the eastern part of the waterfront] a fair marble jounter, convexed over-head, looking over the river; beneath it a garden of pleasure"; "William Finch 1608-11," in Early Travels in India: 1583-1619, ed. William Foster (1921; rpt. New Delhi, 1985), p. 164
57. See also Ebba Koch, "The Baluster Column - A European Motif in Mughal Architecture and Its Meaning," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 254. If Finch's use of the term "jounter" did indeed refer to a bangla pavilion, it would mean that the bangla of Jahangir's Quadrangle dates from Jahangir's reign and that thus it appears earlier in permanent form in the Mughal palace than is generally believed. So far it had been assumed that the bangla pavilion was used in tent form in Jahangiri palaces and that it was replaced in Shah Jahan's reign by its stone version
58. Ebba Koch, "Notes on the Painted and Sculptured Decoration of Nur Jahan's Pavilions in the Ram Bagh (Bagh-i Nur Afshan) at Agra," in Facets of Indian Art, ed. R. Skelton et al. (London, 1986), pp. 51-65; a detailed plan of the terrace with the buildings is on p. 52
59. Ebba Koch, "The Zahara Bagh (Bagh-i Jahanara) at Agra," Environmental Design, 1986, no. 2, pp. 30-37; for a sketch plan, see p. 36. In the seventeenth-century Mughal context, to bequeath a large formal garden to one's children was an imperial prerogative, exceptionally extended only to a member of the imperial family and the nobility. The Muslim nobles in particular were subjected to significant limits in their rights to own heritable property, bequeath property to their heirs, or endow awqaf. Gardens generally reverted to the crown unless their owners had converted them into tomb gardens
60. Koch, "Waterfront Garden," includes a detailed discussion of how the waterfront formula was employed for the planning of the entire Taj complex
61. That means for a palace garden; Kanbō, Bahār-i sukhan, BL, Pers. ms, Or. 178, fol. 256a
62. Lāhawrī, vol. 1, 2, pp. 240-41, trans. Nur Bakhsh, "The Agra Fort and Its Buildings," pp. 180-81
63. For the situation of the garden within the palace context, see Koch, Mughal Architecture, fig. 36/5. I examined the area of the Anguri Bagh thoroughly, but without excavating there is no way to ascertain whether "the new manner" of the Anguri Bagh was indeed new or followed an already existing layout from an earlier construction phase of the Agra fort. The Akbari Mahal, an earlier zanāna complex (see n. 16 above), had anticipated the waterfront scheme to a certain extent in the form of a courtyard building with a deeper wing on the river side. Similarly, the courtyard of the so-called Machchhi Bhawan has a deeper wing on the river side; we do not know if there was a garden before Shah Jahan reconstructed it
64. In Shah Jahan's time the Machchhi Bhawan was referred to as the scombining dot belowahcombining dot belown (court) of the Dawlat Khana-i Khass (hall of private audiences) and then it certainly had no garden, as many, such as Crowe et alii claim (The Gardens of Mughal India, pp. 162-64)
65. The emperor would view his hunting animals such as his hounds, hawks, and cheetahs in this court, and watch his horses working out; see Lāhawrī, vol. 1, 1, p. 149, trans. Nur Bakhsh, "The Agra Fort and Its Buildings," in ASIAR, 1903-4, p. 191
66. cAmal-i Scombining dot belowālihcombining dot below, 2: 6-7
67. For trans, see Nur Bakhsh, "Historical Notes on the Lahore Fort and Its Buildings," in ASIAR, 1902-3, pp. 223-24, where the date is calculated inexactly to 1633. Kanbo does not say where the Khwabgah was situated, but since Jahangir's Quadrangle is conceptually identical to the Anguri Bagh, which was built around the same time, it is safe to assume that the building in the center of its terrace was the Khwabgah, built anew by Shah Jahan. It was altered in later times, but preserves some of its original Shahjahani interior decoration. Our reading is supported by the fact that the building is also identified as "Khwabgah" or "Big Khwabgah" on nineteendi-century representations of the Lahore fort (figs. 10, 13), for which see also n. 53 below
68. For further illustrations, see F.S. Aijazuddin, Lahore: Illustrated Views of the 19th Century (Ahmedabad, 1991), pl. on p. 25, pls. 13, 15
69. For the British reconstruction of the garden, see the report of H. Hargreaves in ASIAR, 1925-26, p. 18, pls. iii c and d. The planting of Jahangir's Quadrangle today extends also into the fields on both sides of the central chār bāgh so that the planted area now conforms to the oblong shape of the courtyard (compare our figs. 10 and 12); the outline of the square chār bāgh is indicated by the khiyābān surrounding the chamans around the central pool. The chār bāgh in a rectangular court perhaps represents the attempt of 1634 to enrich the already existing residental courtyard of Jahangir's time (see n. 40 above) with a garden
70. Cf. Nur Bakhsh, "Lahore Fort," p. 224, where the date is inexactly calculated to 1644. On the 1894 plan the building is inscribed as Khwabgah, indicating its use in the Sikh period
71. Nur Bakhsh, "Lahore Fort," pp. 221-23; for a plan, see pl. xxxiii. The 1894 plan designates the complex as "Samman (= Muthamman) Burj," which means "octagonal tower," a reference to its northern wing projecting as a half-octagon from the outer fort wall
72. For a detailed new plan of the Shah Burj, see James L. Wescoat, "L'acqua nei gardini islamici: religione, rapprezentazione e realità," Il Giardino islamico: architettura, natura, paesaggio, ed. Attilio Petruccioli (Milan, 1994), p. 122
73. trans. Nur Bakhsh, "Agra Fort," pp. 191-93
74. cf. Koch, "Baluster Column," p. 259
75. Reliable general information on the Red Fort of Delhi based on contemporary texts is provided by Gordon Sanderson, A Guide to the Buildings and Gardens, Delhi Fort (1914; rpt. Delhi, 1937)
76. For recent treatments, see Peter Andrews, "Mahall," EI, 2nd ed., 5: 1219-20
77. and Asher, Architecture of Mughal India, pp. 192-200
78. The muthamman baghdādī ("Baghdadian octagon") was a favorite Mughal plan in the shape of a square or rectangle with corners chamfered to form an irregular octagon. Its attraction seems to have been that it could be read both as an octagon and as a square. See Ebba Koch, "Muthamman," EI, 2nd ed., 7: 795-96
79. cAd as a terrestrial paradise. See W. Montgomery-Watt, "Iram," EI, 2nd ed., 3: 1270
80. John Renard, Islam and the Heroic Image: Themes in Literature and the Visual Arts (Columbia, S.C, 1993), pp. 167-68. It was a favorite of Persian authors for eulogistic comparisons
81. cAmal-i Scombining dot belowälihcombining dot below, 3: 26
82. On my plan reproduced as fig. 16, I have only indicated the gardens mentioned by Shah Jahan's historians. The large India Office Library map of Delhi (BL, India Office Records X, 1659) shows many more gardens; so does the plan in the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum, Jaipur (cat. no. 122) (fig. 17). The India Office map has now been fully (and attractively) published in Shahjahanabad - Old Delhi: Tradition and Colonial Change, ed. Eckhart Ehlers und Thomas Krafft, Erkundliches Wissen 111 (Stuttgart, 1993)
83. The map served also as a base for the drawings of Attilio Pettruccioli published with A. Terranova in "Modelli culturali nell' impianto e nelle trasformazioni di Old Delhi," Storia della città, 31-32 (1984): 123-44
84. Gordon Sanderson, "The Shah Burj, Delhi Fort," ASIAR, 1909-10, pp. 25-32, describes the pavilion and its restoration which included a reconstruction of the central ābshār (waterfall). He interprets the pavilion as being part of the Shah Burj
85. I am here developing thoughts first expressed in "The Baluster Column," where I also define the term and the shape of the column
86. Ebba Koch, Shah Jahan and Orpheus: The Pietre Dure Decoration and the Programme of the Throne in the Hall of Public Audiences at the Red Fort of Delhi, (Graz, 1988), in particular pp. 13-14, pl. 1, 2, 4, figs. 2 and 2a
87. For the introduction of the Italian pietre dure technique into Mughal court art and its creative adaption as parchīn karī, see Koch, Shah Jahan and Orpheus, in particular p. 39, n. 24
88. and eadem, "Pietre Dure and Other Artistic Contacts between the Court of the Mughals and That of the Medici," A Mirror of Princes: The Mughals and the Medici, ed. D. Jones (Bombay, 1987) pp. 29-56
89. This represents the culmination of a trend in Shahjahani architectural decoration which was also conceived as an orthodox reaction against the figurai taste of Shah Jahan's father Jahangir. On this point, see Koch, "Jahangir and the Angels" (cited above, n. 34), in particular p. 186
90. Kanbo quotes here, without acknowledgment, from Kalim's eulogy on the building in the garden of Jahanara at Agra, see Koch, "The Zahara Bagh," n. 44 above, p. 34
91. "Bāgh-i Hayāt Bakhsh ka dar manāzil chūn ruhcombining dot below dar badan ast." The inscription is found on the southern and northern arches of the Khwabgah; for its full translation, see Sanderson, A Guide to the Buildings and Gardens, pp. 36-37. The inscription is also quoted by Wārith, fol. 390a, Jaffery transcript p. 47
92. For a discussion of Iram and Khwarnaq in Islamic literary tradition, see Renard, Islam and the Heroic Image, n. 60 above and pp. 174-75
93. On this point, see also Annemarie Schimmel, "The Celestial Garden in Islam," Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture 4, ed. Elisabeth B. Mac Dougall and R.E. Ettinghausen (Washington, D.C., 1976), p. 20