Author: Vinayak Razdan

Hasan Abul, like Bawan, Achebal, Verinag, and Pinjor, is one of those naturally beautiful spots which each religion in turn claims as a holy place. Legends of Buddhist, Brahmin, Mohammedan, and Sikh gather round the numerous springs that gush out of the ground at the north-west foot of the precipitous hill of Baba Wali.

The Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, Hwen Thsang, journeyed from Taxila to visit the spring ; where he mentions the tank, fringed with lotus flowers of different colours, built by the Serpent King, Elapatra one of those vague shadowy Naga kings whose splendours haunt all Indian history, and whose legendary doings reappear with a strange persistence in old Indian gardens.

The place is said to owe its present name to Akbar, who was so struck with its beauty, that it drew from him the exclamation of Wah Bagh ! (Oh, what a garden !) and Wah Bagh it is to this day. But it was Akbar’s son Jahangir who actually built the garden-palace.

Moorcroft, who visited Wah nearly ninety years ago, describes it at some length : ” The garden covers a space about a quarter of a mile in length, and half that in breadth, enclosed by walls partly in ruins. The gateways and turrets that were constructed along the boundary-wall are also mostly in a ruinous condition. The eastern extremity is occupied by two large stone- walled tanks ; the western by parterres, and they are divided by a building which served as a pleasure-house to the Emperor and his household. It was too small for a residence, consisting of a body and two wings, the former containing three long rooms, and the latter divided into small chambers. The interior of the whole is stuccoed, and in the smaller apartments the walls are decorated with flowers, foliage, vases and inscriptions, in which, notwithstanding the neglected state of the building and its antiquity, the lines of the stuccoed work are as fresh as if they had but just been completed, indicating a very superior quality in the stucco of the East over the West. The chambers in the southern front of the western wing, and others continued beyond it, constitute a suite of baths, including cold, hot, and medicated baths, and apartments for servants, for dressing, and reposing, heating-rooms and reservoirs : the floors of the whole have been paved with a yellow breccia, and each chamber is surmounted by a low dome with a
central sky-light. The water, which was supplied from the reservoirs first noticed, is clear and in great abundance. It comes from several copious springs, at the base of some limestone hills in the neighbourhood and, after feeding the tanks and canals of the garden, runs off with the Dhamrai river that skirts the plain on the north and east.” The present owner takes a great interest in this old Imperial pleasure-ground, and has recently built up the ruined walls and done much to restore the gardens.

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From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
Read more:

• Previous :- Gardens, Routes Kashmir
• Manasbal Darogha or Lalla Rookhs Garden Next :-

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About the image: Lalla Rookh‘s Tomb Hassan Abdal, painted by Major E. Molyneux for ‘Kashmir by Francis Younghusband‘ (1911)

I went down into the Garden of Nuts
To see the green plants of the Valley,
To see whether the Vine budded
And the Pomegranates were in flower.

– Song of Songs.

Kashmir, the state which outweighed the whole Indian Empire in the estimation of the Emperor Jahangir, must have been particularly dear to the Mughals ; reminding them as it did of their cool northern home – country. The whole country, however, is not very large, consisting of one main valley ninety miles long by twenty-five miles broad, completely encircled by high mountains, and when the Mughal Emperors visited it, the difficulties of transport and of securing provisions, as well as the actual dangers of the road over the mountain passes, made it necessary to restrict the number of the Court as far as possible. Only nobles of the first rank were permitted to accompany the Emperor and Empress. What intrigues and heart-burnings there must have been over the question of privilege, since courtiers not in favour were condemned to stop short at the foot of the great mountains in the suffocating heat of the Bember ravine! The summer Bernier visited Kashmir, Fadai Khan, Grandmaster of the Artillery, Aurungzeb’s trusted foster-brother, was left in charge, stationed as a guard below the pass, ” until the great heat be over when the King will return.”

There are three old routes into the country : by Bember and the Pir Panjal ; the Jumna route by Verinag ; and a much longer journey from the north-west through the valleys of the Kishenganga and Jhelum. This last seems to have been the natural outlet from Kashmir and the most frequented route in early times. At Hasan Abul, where the road leaves the plains, the Mughal Garden of Wah Bagh can still be seen. It was built here on account of the springs and used as an Imperial camping-ground.

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From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
Read more:

• Previous :- Great Gardens of Kashmir based on writing of C.M. Villiers Stuart
• Wah Bagh Hasan Abul Next :-

Photograph: View of  Kashmir side of Pir Panjal. NH1-A from Jammu to Srinagar. Shot by me in June 2008.

Serialization of Chapter 8: Summer Gardens of Kashmir
from C. M. Villiers-Stuart’s monumental book  ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’

• Dara Shukoh’s Garden at Bijbehara
• History of Verinag Bagh of Anantnag
• March of the Amarnath Pilgrims in early 20th century
• Achabal Garden in the 19th century
• Laila-Majnum Symbolism of Gardens

More: Serialization of Chapter 7: Gardens of the Dal Lake

Image: Inside the central structure at Shalimar Garden. Shot by me in June, 2008.

It is pleasant to find what a pride and delight both Indians and Kashmiris take in the old Imperial gardens. Only the Europeanised Indians have lost touch with these simple pleasures: young Rajas, ‘doing’ Kashmir or the gardens at Lahore, accompanied by some bored English tutor, and followed by a noisy horde of retainers, walk hurriedly up one side of the stream and down the other; but even they sometimes cast wistful glances back at the flowers and the fountains, ere they whirl off again in their motor cars. Bustling sightseers, however, are a rare occurrence here, and the famous baghs are always full of real garden lovers. All great festivals and holidays are celebrated, if possible, in a garden. Students bring their books, and work under the trees. A day in one of these great walled gardens is an event which appeals as much to purdah ladies as to the very poorest class. The great Emperors who planned them and lived in them-Babar, Akbar, Jahangir and his Nur-Jahan-are far more vivid personalities in India than Elizabeth or the Stuart sovereigns are in England. And every Indian speaks with a lingering regret of the days of the older Bad-shahi, ‘when the gardens were in their splendid prime.’  

– C.M. Villiers Stuart (1877-1966) in her pioneering book ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ – first of its kind work that lead to the historical study of Mughal Gardens and Indian gardening. 

On 26th of February 1908, Constance Mary Fielden, a water-color painter and a budding writer, become Constance Mary Villiers Stuart after marrying Englishman Major Patrick Villiers Stuart, son of Henry Windsor Villiers-Stuart.The same year she moved to India with her husband and before the end of 1913, her great book ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ was already published.

Her book opens with following lines, a dedication:

TO
MY MOTHER
AND TO ALL EAST AND WEST
WHO LOVE THEIR OWN GARDENS

While she was working on this book, plans for creation “New Delhi” were in process. Towards the end of the book, in its final chapter titled ‘Some Garden Contrasts and a Dream’, Mary Villiers made an impassioned appeal for a thoughful, planned inclusion of Indian design sensibilities into the creation of the New Imperial Capital of India. But, these appeals had little effect. 

It is easy enough to picture the change : the exposed private garden, a contradiction in its very terms ; the public parks with their bare acres of unhappy-looking grass, their ugly bandstands, hideous iron railings, and forlorn European statues ; their wide, objectless roads, scattered flower-beds, and solitary trees, and, worst of all in a hot country, their lack of fountains and running water. It is pleasanter to turn to some modern Indian garden, an attempt, perhaps, to reconcile these two opposing styles.

Mary Villiers was describing a Anglo-Indian landscape in these line, but she could well have been describing a randomly picked spot from the future urban landscape of India.

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C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ has two chapter on the subject of Mughal Gardens in Kashmir. The chapter are titled Gardens of the Dal Lake and Summer gardens of Kashmir

I have serialized these ‘Kashmir Chapter’ based on the Gardens and the narrative.You can read these chapters here:

Chapter 7: Gardens of the Dal Lake

Chapter 8: Summer Gardens of Kashmir

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You can read and download the entire book here at Archive.org

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Images:
1. The Queen’s Pavilion (Shalimar Bagh)
    Painting in water colour by C. M. Villiers-Stuart
    The Frontpiece of the book ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ published in 1913.
2. The Queen’s Pavilion (Shalimar Bagh). Shot by me in June 2008.

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Garden, Paradise and Kashmir