In the early northern gardens, before the canals were enlarged sufficiently to admit of the line of fountain jets which afterwards became such a characteristic, these shallow fountain basins were used as much in the open garden as they were in rooms or verandahs. Sometimes they were introduced in the centre of a raised stone chabutra ; or placed at intervals along the narrow watercourses like those at Hazrat Bal, the finest of which we found hidden away under the wooden platform of the mosque. This was almost lost, buried under the mud and refuse, when, thanks to the exertions of some village boys urged on by two white-bearded elders, we unearthed this really fine example of the stone- mason’s art. It is a large oval basin cut in ight deep flutes radiating from the centre; each division having a fish or wild duck carved in relief, represented as about to swim away over the edge of the fountain. A crane or stork is carved at each end where the basin is cut away to meet the swirl of the water as it rushed in and out from the narrow canal. The second fountain is similar, but smaller.
Charming as they are from a purely decorative point of view, these fountains are more noticeable on account of the birds and living creatures used in their ornamentation. This points to their early origin, when under the wise, art-loving Akbar the old Hindu temple carvers and craftsmen were encouraged to work again in stone for their new Moslem masters : and even these two forgotten carvings show that wonderful Indian sense of rhythm which still remains a living national trait.
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From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
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Akbar was the first Emperor to enter Kashmir. He built the fort at Srinagar called Hari Pabat (the Green Hill), and planned a large garden not far away on the shores of the Dal, that beautiful lake which lies between the city and the mountain amphitheatre to the north of Srinagar. The Nisim Bagh, Akbar’s garden, stands in a fine open position well raised above the lake; and takes its name from the cool breezes that blow all day long under its trees. The walls, canals, and fountains have disappeared ; and the avenues of magnificent chenars with which it is closely planted must have been added long after the garden was laid out, if ‘Ali Mardan Khanwas the first to introduce these trees into the country. Fully grown they resemble heavy- foliaged sycamores with serrated leaves and smooth, silvery boles and branches. They were, and are, greatly prized for their size and beauty, and more especially for their dense shade. Apart from the garden avenues, chenars are often to be seen in the villages and by the sides of the old caravan roads. They are usually planted at the four points of a square so as to shade a plot of ground all day long, and thus formed a series of halting-places between one camp and the next. In Kashmir they still remain royal trees ; they are Government property, not to be cut down with- out a special permit from the Maharaja. Green turf covers the ruined masonry terraces of the Nisim Bagh, which rise grandly from the water ; but the trees are in their prime, and the view from under their boughs across the blue expanse of the lake, crowned by the snow -streaked Mahadev, remains as enchanting as when Akbar chose this site for the first Mughal garden in Kashmir.
Between the Nisim and the Fort there is a smaller lake, at the far end of which are the remains of a picturesque garden called the Nageen Bagh. What is left shows another lake- side garden, smaller, but in character much like that of Lalla Rookh on the Manasbal. It is built on a narrow point of land, its terraces rising on three sides out of the water which forms large canals on either hand. A pavilion shaded by great chenars stands close down by the edge of the lake. All round the sides of the Dal Lake there are broken walls and terraces, the remains of early Mughal gardens. Hazrat Bal, the village close to the Nisim Bagh, stands on the site of one of these. The large mosque, where the hair of the Prophet is preserved, and specially venerated once a year at a great mela, is built round the principal garden-house. The narrow stone water- course runs beneath it, and through the village square, in the midst of which a beautifully carved stone chabutra figures conspicuously and still forms a convenient praying platform. The old entrance can be seen in the long line of stone steps leading down to the water, but the most interesting feature at Hazrat Bal is the carved stone fountains.
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From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
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Entering the Kashmir valley through the ravine of Baramulla, the rest of the journey to the capital at Srinagar was undertaken by water. Crossing the stormy Wular Lake, the largest lake in India, Sumbal on the Jhelum River proved a favourite halting – place. At a short distance below the village a canal leads off to the little Manasbal Lake. The road to Gilgit runs along its western shore, and round the steep north-eastern banks are remains of various Mughal gardens. The largest of these, the Darogha Bagh, the royal palace built for the Empress Nur-Jahan, now fancifully called Lalla Rookh‘s Garden, juts out into the lake with its burden of terraced walls and slender poplar trees, like some great high-decked galleon floating on the calm clear water.
The banks of the Manasbal are deserted now, the gardens are in ruins. Only a few sportsmen, or hardy tourists, venture their boats up the narrow canal, and anchor in the shadow of the old chenars. Fashion sets away elsewhere, toward the English hill stations, with their small log huts perched high up on the mountain sides. But the Mughals, with their love of scenery and genius for garden – building, rarely chose a better site than the shores of this loveliest and loneliest of all the Kashmir lakes.
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From C.M. Villiers Stuart’s ‘Gardens of the Great Mughals’ (1913)
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1. Caption Reads: “Pencil and wash drawing heightened with white of the Manasbal lake, Kashmir by Charles Stewart Hardinge (1822-1894), dated 1846. Inscribed on the front is: ‘Manasa Bal. May/46. Cashmere. Hardinge,’ and on the reverse: ‘Manasa Lake. The most beautiful lake in Cashmere’.
Manasbal Lake is situated in Jammu and Kashmir State, approximately 32 kilometres from Srinagar. The lake is about 5 kilometres long and 1.2 kilometres wide and is the deepest lake within the Kashmir Valley. On the northern shore is a ruined fort built in seventeenth century by a Mughal king to cater for the needs of caravans that used to travel from the Punjab to Srinagar. The lake is considered important for the abundance of lotus flowers which grow on its shores during July and August.”
2. Caption Reads: “A view of Manasbal Lake framed by trees from the ‘Album of Indian Views’ by Samuel Bourne, 1864. Manasbal is situated on the Jhelum Valley at a distance of 32 kms from Srinagar. The word Manasbal is derived from Mansarovar, the sacred lake in the Kailasha Mountains. The Lake is surrounded by low hills and plateaus and is the deepest in Kashmir. Lotus flowers grow in profusion on the waters, and the lake is famous for the many types of birds that can be found here.”
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)
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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)
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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:
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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.
Paddy fields of Kashmir, past the check point at Lower Munda.
An Army officer, posted in this region, once told a cousin of mine, “You Kashmiri men are no good! Look at at your field, only your women do all the work!”
Paddy cultivation is said to be a very delicate process. In Kashmir, unlike most other places in India, mostly women work in paddy fields and sow, harvest and stack paddy. And they sing while work. They sing a type of Kashmiri folk song known as Naindai Gyavun. They sing and ask for the kindness of their prophets and Gods, Nabis and Bharavs. And to their lover they sing:
Reaping and reaping, my hands are now tired,
And yet, my love, the end of this field is in no sight.
Cutting and cutting, my hands are now bruised,
And yet, my love, the end of this field is in no sight.
Drops of sweat, in drains, now run down my forehead.
And yet, my love, the end of this field is in no sight.
The golden harvest, this harvest a tease, dances with wind.
And yet, my love, the end of this field is in no sight.
Does Kashmir – the bone of contention between India and Pakistan for over 50 years – really belong to the US? This is the startling revelation made by Dan Brown, the internationally bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code , in a shortly to be released non-fictional work, The Secret of the K-word .
Using spectroscopic analysis (a technique described in detail in The Da Vinci Code’ the author claims to have discovered the original document over which the Instrument of Accession, signed by Kashmir Maharaja Hari Singh and preserved in the National Archives, New Delhi, was later superimposed.
The secret document reveals that Hari Singh, equally apprehensive of joining either India or Pakistan, covertly ceded Kashmir to the US. According to Brown, when the map of Kashmir is reversed it becomes, uncannily, congruent with the hilly state of Kentucky in the southern US.
In a telephonic interview with The Times of India , the Houston-based author said…
he had employed the ancient Kabbalistic form of numerological interpretation to discover “amazing co-relatives between Kashmir and Kentucky which by no stretch of the imagination can be put down to pure coincidence”.
For instance, when the longitude of Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky, is divided by the latitude of Srinagar, the Kashmiri capital, the prime number so obtained has the same numeric valency as Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which accords a special status to Kashmir.
Describing it as “one of the best-hidden secrets of the modern world”, Brown acknowledged that his book would “create a global furore” and “open many cans of worms”.
Disclaiming that America’s Central Intelligence Agency had any role in these developments, the author said, “The truth can no longer be suppressed. We owe this much at least to the long-suffering people of Kashmir. May the truth set them free, at long last.”
Serialization of Chapter 8: Summer Gardens of Kashmir 
