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The real magic of the Taj Mahal

Explore the magical history of the magnificent Taj Mahal Gardens

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By Amy Saunders | March 20, 2018 | Gardens

Words by Adrian Higgins, The Washington Post

The Taj Mahal complex is an enormous walled compound almost 1,000 feet across and originally more than half a mile long. It contains three other major buildings, the mosque and the assembly hall that flank the mausoleum and an imposing portal, the Great Gate.

And yet the single biggest element of the Taj complex is its least recognised, the garden. The Mughal garden is a highly symbolic space shaped by its prescribed layout, features and allegories. It gives a foretaste of the paradisiacal afterlife.

Perhaps because their full glory seems gone forever, Mughal gardens have captured the imagination of Western garden historians like no other landscape style.

I think this is also because they come the closest to fulfilling the ambitions of all gardeners, to create a version of heaven on Earth. This is why the garden at the Taj Mahal and other Mughal sites will outlive ideological assaults. The organising principle is a central axis, normally a narrow canal, bisected by a cross axis with a secondary channel. These waterways, originally built in Persian gardens as a way of irrigating the garden, came to symbolise the four Koranic Rivers of paradise.

 

Taj Mahal as seen from the banks of the river Yamuna in Agra, India.The Taj Mahal is seen from the banks of the river Yamuna, in Agra, India, on Jan. 29, 2007. Image: Sanjit Das/Bloomberg

 

Typically, the mausoleum or pleasure pavilion is placed at the key intersection of these canals to form the heart of the garden. The Taj, though, is set at the far end of its site, effectively making its landscape setting appear bigger and more lavish.

These four-square gardens, known as chahar bagh, create large quadrants that are further subdivided into smaller geometric planting beds or lawns (there are 16 at the Taj Mahal, for example).The real allure of the chahar bagh is in its opposing forces, how something so sacred is also so pleasurable, which is perhaps the essence of paradise. Once the comforting order of the architecture is established, the garden becomes a playground for the senses.

 

The design of Humayun’s Tomb, built in the 16th century, inspired the design of the Taj Mahal. Image: AKTC Delhi

 

The water features, the chutes, the fountains, basins and canals bring delight, especially fast-moving in the Mughal’s lakeside pleasure gardens in hilly Kashmir. Fruit trees abounded and the flowerbeds were full of tulips, irises and herbs. The scent of blossoms hung in the air, not just from damask roses but pinks, Persian lilacs and jasmine.

At the Emperor Jahangir’s Kashmir garden, Shalamar Bagh, a water cascade creates a fluid curtain over niches that in their prime would have been filled with cut flowers by day, and lanterns at night, half-veiled by the tumbling water.

Austrian scholar who has spent 45 years studying Mughal architecture, Ebba Koch sees Mughal Agra as a now-faded riverfront garden city but a glory that is still felt at the Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal. Koch said that the biggest threat to what is left is the general encroachment of the city.

 

Featured Image: Koushik Chowdavarapu, Unsplash

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