My first visit to a Mughal garden was many decades ago. I was a teenager then and was taken to visit the sprawling Pinjore Gardens in Panchkula district of Haryana. The Pinjore Gardens came under the territory ruled by the Maharajas of Patiala before independence. They were renamed as the Yadavindra Gardens after Yadavindra Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala who ruled from 1938 to 1974 and who restored the garden to its former glory.
Grand gardens in India
But first the concept of grand gardens in India. Art historian Catherine Asher writes that though there we find mentions of sacred groves around Buddhist and Hindu shrines, as well as the names of myriad flowers and trees, it was Babur, the founder of the Mughal empire in India, who introduced the concept of grand gardens here. Though Babur held Samarkand briefly, its garden and the concept of charbagh (a quadrilateral garden layout based on the four gardens of Paradise mentioned in the Koran) made a profound impression on him. After he established his kingdom in India, Babur created many gardens. The first of them was the Aram Bagh in Agra, now named the Ram Bagh. His great grandson, Jahangir, also had a deep love for flora and fauna and many charbaghs were created during his reign.
These Mughal gardens were chronicled in the book, Gardens of the Great Mughals, by Constance Mary Villiers-Stuart. She writes: “All the finest Mughal gardens or their ruins are found in beautiful situations, centering round a hillside spring, like the gardens of Achibal, Verinag, Wah, and Pinjor or else built across a narrow ravine or valley through which a constant stream of water flows, such as the Kashmir Shalimar Bagh.”
Villiers-Stuart resided in the Pinjore Gardens for a few years and she describes it lovingly. It was built on the springs of Panchpura, known as the town of the Pandavas. And according to legend, the closing scene of the Mahabharat was against the backdrop of these wooded hills.
Visualising the garden
After many centuries, Muzaffar Hussain, popularly known as Fidai Khan Koka, the foster brother of Aurangzeb and the man who built the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, was appointed the governor of Punjab which included this salubrious area.
For those who have lived in the hot and dusty plains of India, the hills are always attractive. Fidai Khan was no exception to this lure of the hills, and with his artistic sensibility he visualised the potential of this location with its springs. He planned a terraced garden which would, as Villiers-Stuart says poetically, “embrace wide views over the lower woodlands to the plains beyond; a garden through which the spring might flow with the never-ending music of its waterfalls and fountains.” Among the many flowers and trees which grew here, roses were prominent. Sadaf Fatima in Gardens in Mughal India quotes Khulasat-ut-Tawarikh (1695 CE) by Sujan Rai Bhandari that 40 Alamgiri maunds of roses were sent from the Pinjore Gardens to the Gulab Khana for making attar. This is a tradition that was apparently restored by the Patiala Maharajas.
However, Fidai Khan’s summer retreat alarmed the neighbouring hill rajas “for they dreaded the coming of the Mughal Court, and feared still more to lose the use of the precious water which irrigated the surrounding country,” says Villiers-Stuart. They came up with an ingenuous idea of making him vacate it. They ensured that the noble employed men and women who were suffering from goitre. Soon, a rumour was spread that the air and water of Pinjore were causing goitre. The alarmed women insisted on leaving the place and Fidai Khan was left with no choice. This garden of seven levels with its beautiful palaces was occupied by Fidai Khan and his harem for a few years only.
In 1769, the area in which Pinjore Gardens was located fell into the hands of the Patiala kings. In the 19th century, it became popular because of its location on the Ambala-Shimla route. Today, the Haryana tourism department maintains it beautifully.
The best time to visit the gardens is in the evening. As I entered the grand gateway, I recalled the descriptions of the Red Fort gardens that I had read in Asar-us-Sanadid by Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan. A single water channel runs through the entire garden, falling down the chute at each level, creating mists. This chute, called chini-khana, has niches in which camphor lamps used to burn at night and bouquets of fragrant flowers were kept during the day. Today they are lit up electrically.
The residential palaces in the initial level have been tastefully transformed into a hotel and restaurant.
The Jal Mahal at the centre of a water pool is well lit. For a while I was transported back in time as I could visualise the dancers and singers entertaining the residents in the evenings.
