House and Garden 
Vol. VI 
November, 1904 
No. 5 
INDIAN GARDENS 
By E. B. Havell 
OF THE GOVERNMENT SCHOOL OF ART AT CALCUTTA 
G ARDENING, in an artistic sense, will 
soon become one of the lost arts of 
India: perhaps it may be placed in that cat¬ 
egory already. Gardening, in a horticultural 
sense, still flourishes in India, and doubtless 
will continue to do so ; but the art, so well 
understood by the Moguls, of planning and 
planting gardens in direct harmonious rela¬ 
tion to the house, palace, or mausoleum to 
which they belong, is now rarely, if ever, prac¬ 
ticed. Even the old gardens which the Mo¬ 
guls designed have either been allowed to 
fall into ruin or have been so transformed on 
modern European lines that the original idea 
has been entirely lost. 
There are two causes which have led to 
the neglect of old Indian garden-craft: first, 
the degradation of taste, which, among so 
many Indians of the higher classes, has con¬ 
verted an active artistic faculty into a passive 
imitation of European fashions; secondly, 
the change of habits, which has deprived the 
garden of a great deal of the practical use it 
formerly served. Before the days of rail¬ 
ways the garden in India took the place of 
hill-stations and summer resorts. With its 
fountains, cascades, water-courses and airy 
pavilions, it was a refuge in the hot weather 
from the stifling heat of the house. Every 
rich man, besides his ancestral palace or 
mansion (which always possessed inner court¬ 
yards, planted as gardens for the especial use 
of the ladies of the zanana), kept up one or 
more summer retreats, or garden-houses. 
Previous to the Mogul epoch there is 
very little information to be obtained con¬ 
cerning Hindu notions of gardening, except 
what may be gathered from very vague de¬ 
scriptions in dramatic or poetical writings. 
The illustration given on the following page 
shows the ordinary type represented in 
Hindu paintings; but I know of no 
Hindu pictures of gardens older than the 
Mogul time, and probably this painting rep¬ 
resents a style borrowed largely, if not en¬ 
tirely, from the Moguls. In the Mogul 
gardens there is always a raised platform, 
generally placed in the center. This was a 
very essential feature, for the raison d'etre of 
an Indian garden was much more as a place 
for reclining at ease, for quiet enjoyment of 
music, of conversation and the hukkah , in 
the cool of the evening, rather than for ex¬ 
ercise or amusements of an athletic descrip¬ 
tion. In Indian gardens, therefore, tbe 
meandering paths, cunning mazes, labyrinths, 
and wide lawns, which Western people enjoy, 
are never found. Round the platform, which 
often had a fountain in the center, the gar¬ 
den was mapped out into square or oblong 
flower-beds, nearly always planted with pop¬ 
pies, if we may believe old native pictures 
of Hindu gardens. Trees were planted 
round the platform and along the four sides 
of the garden, and also scattered somewhat 
promiscuously among the flower-beds. The 
planting of the garden, as well as the disposal 
of trees and flowers, had to conform to vari¬ 
ous considerations besides esthetic rules. Ac¬ 
cording to an old Indian treatise on garden¬ 
ing, the north and east sides of the house 
were auspicious for making a garden; the 
south, southwest and southeast were as¬ 
pects to be avoided. “These five trees 
2 r 3 
Copyright, IQ04, —Henry T. Coates & Co. 
