The enclosed garden is ancient indeed.
O garden enclosed--a garden of living waters
And flowing streams from Lebanon:
Awake O North Wind; and come thou South;
Blow upon my garden that the spices may thereof flow out!
So sang the esthetic Solomon.
A garden enclosed, a garden of living waters, a garden of
perfumes--these are the motives of the Indian gardens of the luxurious
Mogul emperors, whose reigns coincide with Tudor times.
Symbolism played an important part in Indian gardens. The beautiful
garden of Babar (near Kabul) was called the Bagh-i-vafa--"The Garden of
Fidelity." This has many points in common with the illustration of the
"Romaunt of the Rose," particularly the high walls.
There is also great similarity with the gardens of Elizabethan
days. The "pleached allies" and "knots" of the English gardens
of Shakespeare's time find equivalents in the vine pergolas and
geometrical parterres of the Mogul emperors; and the central platform
of the Mogul gardens answered the same purpose as the banqueting-hall
on the mound, which decorated nearly every English nobleman's garden.
IV
_Bagh-i-vafa_
Babar's "Garden of Fidelity" was made in the year 1508. We see Babar
personally superintending the laying out of the "four-field plot." Two
gardeners hold the measuring line and the architect stands by with
his plan. The square enclosure at the bottom of the garden (right) is
the tank. The whole is bordered with orange and pomegranate trees. An
embassy knocks at the gate, but Babar is too absorbed in his gardening
to pay any attention to the guests.
Fifteen years later Babar stole three days away from his campaign
against the Afghans and visited his beautiful garden. "Next morning,"
he wrote in his "Memoirs," "I reached Bagh-i-vafa. It was the season
when the garden was in all its glory. Its grass-plots were all covered
with clover; its pomegranate trees were entirely of a beautiful yellow
color. It was then the pomegranate season and pomegranates were hanging
red on the trees. The orange-trees were green and cheerful, loaded with
innumerable oranges; but the best oranges were not yet ripe. I never
was so much pleased with the 'Garden of Fidelity' as on this occasion."
[Illustration: BABAR'S "GARDEN OF FIDELITY"]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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