2 ON SOME EARLY GARDEN HISTORY 



Indians the most beautiful of all, the garden of 

 sweet perfumes and soft lights. 



Indian gardening, like every other Indian art, 

 is closely interwoven with the history of the 

 country, and the artistic traditions and religious 

 ideals of its designers played a far larger part 

 in the ordering and planting of the gardens than 

 is usual in European pleasure-grounds. Many 

 of us have seen and admired the great terraces, 

 canals, and tanks of the ruined Mughal gardens 

 of Upper India and Kashmir, beautiful even in 

 their present uncared-for state, their vast plan 

 and solid building surviving in defiant grandeur 

 past neglect and devastation. But few English 

 people seem to be aware how close was the 

 relation of these Eastern gardens, where not only 

 the general design but each flower and tree had 

 originally its symbolic meaning and method of 

 arrangement, to the life and traditions of their 

 builders. 



To understand and appreciate any phase of 

 Eastern art, its underlying symbolism must 

 always be kept in view. The Mughals and 

 Hindus, like other Eastern nations, were interested 

 in art and enjoyed beauty, not for its own sake 

 but for the religious and other traditional ideas 



