Kashmir Part 4

It is of the typical Hindu plan of a square with recessed corners, and is built like all the ancient Kashmir temples of ma.s.sive blocks of stones.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE MAR Ca.n.a.l, SRINAGAR]

PANDRATHAN

Three miles up the river from Srinagar is the site of what is very probably the original city of Srinagar founded by Asoka. The name of Pandrathan now given to the village is identified with the Puranadhisthana, or "ancient capital" of the records, and this has been presumed to be the same as Srinagar founded by Asoka, the Buddhist king. But of this city nothing now remains, and the picturesque temple there is of later date. It was built by the minister Meruvad-dhana in the beginning of the tenth century, and dedicated to Vishnu.

THE DAL LAKE

The Dal Lake, with the ca.n.a.l leading into it, and the various gardens on its sh.o.r.es, is one of the chief attractions of the neighbourhood of Srinagar. It is always lovely, but perhaps at no season more beautiful than early in May. Pa.s.sing through the lock known as the Dal Darwaza, we glide through channels of still, transparent water hedged in by reeds and willows. On the right rises the Takht-i-Suliman immediately out of the lake. In front are the snowy ranges bordering the Sind valley. Numerous side-channels branch off and intersect. The sh.o.r.es are covered with market gardens. Country boats laden with their produce continually pa.s.s, usually propelled by some old man or woman squatting at the extreme prow, and balancing him or herself there with extraordinary confidence and skill. Numerous kingfishers of brilliant sky-blue plumage flash across the water; and gorgeous yellow-golden orioles dart from tree to tree. Clumps of n.o.ble chenar trees with the Kashmir chalet houses are grouped along the banks, and often overhang the mirror waters. Orchards of quince trees with their delicate pink and white blossom and fields of brilliant yellow mustard line the sh.o.r.es. Cows and their calves, sheep and their little lambs, graze on the fresh green gra.s.s; and pretty but dirty little children, geese and goslings, ducks and ducklings, dabble in the water, and all tell of the rich abundant life now bursting into being.

Rounding a turn in the ca.n.a.l a graceful Hindu temple is seen forming the end of a reach, and on its steps leading to the edge of the water and reflected in it are picturesque groups of women, most of them indeed in the dull brown which they wear with lamentable frequency, but some of them also in bright greens and yellows which furnish the needed touch of colour to the scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GUGGRIBAL POINTE ON THE DAL LAKE]

Some hundreds of yards farther on we pa.s.s under an old bridge with a pointed arch of quaint artistic design of Moghal times. Numerous grain boats of enormous size are congregated here; and half a mile farther the channel gradually opens out, and at length we emerge on to the open lake itself.

The water is so still and so clear that the reflections of the surrounding mountains are seen as in the most polished mirror. The reflected mountain is as sharp and distinct as the mountain itself.

The luxuriant plant growth from the bottom and the numerous fishes are seen as in clear air. On the far sh.o.r.es of the lake the stately avenues of the Nishat and Shalimar Baghs approach the water's edge.

Above them rise high mountain cliffs. Graceful boats glide smoothly over the gla.s.sy surface of the lake--some the bearers of market produce, some occupied by fishermen, and a few filled with holiday-makers enjoying thoroughly the beauty of the scene, and giving expression to the enjoyment in songs and music.

May is not the season for the lotus, so that one additional attraction is lacking; but in July and August, when the lotus is in full bloom, the lake itself, though not the sh.o.r.es and setting, is at perfection.

The lotuses are as large as the two hands joined together, of a delicate pink, and set on the water in hundreds. In the midst of their graceful leaves they add a beauty to the lake which attracts mult.i.tudes from the city.

Gliding on beyond the lotuses we pa.s.s the famous Isle of Chenars with its magnificent trees and gra.s.sy velvet banks; we pa.s.s a little promontory with another huge chenar tree growing out right over the water, and giving shelter to a house-boat comfortably ensconced beneath its shade; and then we reach the widest and most open portion of the lake. In the distance, towards the Sind valley, well-wooded villages cover the lower slopes of the mountains inclining towards the lake, and away in the farthest westward distance the Khagan snows are faintly traced.

From here to the Nishat or Shalimar Baghs we would bear off to the right. To the Nasim Bagh we bear to the left, and closing in to the southern sh.o.r.e pa.s.s a picturesque village by the side of the lake with chalet-like house, a handsome ziarat, a background of chenar trees and long lines of steps, generally crowded with people, leading to the water's edge. In about an hour's row from the start at the Dal Darwaza the Nasim Bagh is reached.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOTUS LILIES ON THE DAL LAKE]

NASIM BAGH

The Nasim Bagh is a series of avenues of glorious chenar trees crossing one another at right angles, and each avenue about three hundred yards in length. Under these is soft, fresh green gra.s.s, and the whole is raised twenty or thirty feet above the water. There are no flower gardens, but the site makes a perfect camping-ground, and many house-boats anchor here in the summer.

Looking out from the shade of the chenars we see straight across the lake the Shalimar Bagh with the Dachigan valley behind it, and the snowy Mahadeo Peak towering above. From the opposite side of the Bagh, looking away from the lake, there are views over the Kashmir valley to the snows of the Pir Panjal and of the Khagan range. And round the edges were clumps of large white and purple irises.

In the autumn the Nasim Bagh is more beautiful still, for then the chenars are in all the richness of their autumn foliage, and a more perfect camping or picnic spot man could hardly wish for.

THE SHALIMAR BAGH

On the north-east corner of the Dal Lake, and approached by a ca.n.a.l about a mile in length, with banks of soft green turf, and running between an avenue of chenars and willows, is the Shalimar Bagh, or royal garden, the favourite resort of the Moghal Emperor Jehangir and his wife, the famous Nurmahal, for whom the Taj at Agra was built as a tomb. The gardens can also be reached by a beautiful road along the sh.o.r.es of the lake, nine miles from the city of Srinagar.

The situation is not so beautiful as the site of the Nishat Bagh, for it is almost on a level, and is surrounded by a high wall. But it is only in comparison with the Nishat Bagh that it can suffer disparagement, and anywhere else than in Kashmir it would be hard to find a more beautiful garden than the Shalimar on an autumn evening, when the great avenue of chenar trees is tinged with gold and russet, when the lofty mountains which rise behind it take on every shade of blue and purple, and the long lines of fountains running through the avenue sparkle in the sunshine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHALIMAR GARDENS]

The garden is remarkable too for a pavilion, with exquisitely carved pillars of black marble. It is set in a tank in which play numbers of fountains, and round the borders of the tank are ma.s.sive chenar trees.

The total length of the garden is 600 yards, and it is arranged in four terraces, on three of which are pavilions. Except for the pavilion with marble pillars and the water channel, the garden is in a state of ruin; but Mr. Nichols of the Archaeological Department Survey has attempted to reconstruct its former outlines. There is a tradition that the garden was originally larger than the present walled enclosure, and there are found along the ca.n.a.l which connects it with the Dal Lake the ruins of masonry foundations, which mark either the beginning of the old garden or the site of a pavilion within it.

Causeways and channels probably extended across the garden with tanks and platforms.

The garden was in the strictest sense a formal garden, and in making his recommendation for its restoration, Mr. Nichols enlarges on the artificiality which is the charm of a formal garden. Appreciation of a formal garden requires, he thinks, an acquired taste, but the Moghals certainly understood such matters. They were quite right in selecting trees of formal growth, and planting them on geometrical lines, the essence of a good garden being that it should form a pleasing intermediate step between the free treatment which Nature lavishes on hills and plains, field and forest, and that necessarily artificial object--a building made by the hand of men.

Such are Mr. Nichols' ideas, for which there is a good deal to be said. But some may also think that when a once formal garden and formal buildings have _already_ fallen into ruin and returned as it were to nature, there may be less need to restore the formality, and that to fall in with the ways of Nature may be the best method of adding to the existing beauty of the garden. In any case the improvement of the turf, the removal of modern hideosities of buildings, and the replacing of the makeshift fountains by fountains of really tasteful design, would greatly improve this beautiful garden.

THE NISHAT BAGH

The Nishat Bagh is decidedly the favourite garden in Kashmir, though it has no building so fine as the pavilion with the black pillars in the Shalimar Bagh. Its situation on the rising ground sloping up from the Dal Lake, backed by a range of mountains immediately behind, and with views far over the water and over the valley to the distant snowy mountains, gives it an advantage over every other garden, and its beauty in spring-time when the Kashmir lilac and the fruit trees are in blossom, when the chenars are in young leaf and the turf in its freshest green, I have already described.[1] In the autumn it is scarcely less beautiful in a different way. Then the chenars are in a gorgeous foliage of gold and purple. Day after day of brilliant sunshine and cloudless sky give a sense of security of beauty, and no more perfect pleasure-ground could be imagined.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NISHAT BAGH]

The garden was constructed by the Moghal Emperor Jehangir. It can be reached either by water or by road along the sh.o.r.es of the lake. It is about 600 yards long and divided into seven terraces, each rising well above the other. Down the centre runs a water-channel broken into a succession of waterfalls and fountains, and shaded by an avenue of chenars.

The pavilion at the entrance, though affording from its upper story a striking view of the garden right up the line of waterfalls and fountains, and on to the mountains which hang over the garden, is a modern structure and is not beautiful in itself. It is a thousand pities, indeed, that this most superb site has not been made use of to construct a really beautiful pavilion on the lines of that in the Shalimar Bagh. On the higher terraces are the foundations of other pavilions and ma.s.sive stone throne-like seats which indicate the fuller beauties of the Moghal times.

On the topmost terrace is a beautiful clump of magnificent chenar trees and a wide extent of soft green turf--an ideal spot for picnics and garden-parties. And it is from this point that can be seen the most beautiful and extensive views through the avenue of chenar trees, over the fountains and waterfalls, on to the gla.s.sy lake and the distant snowy ranges.

PARIHASAPURA

A very little known but very accessible and particularly interesting spot is the site of the ancient city of Parihasapura, the modern Paraspur, situated two and a half miles south-west of Shadipur, and stretching from there on a karewa, or raised plateau, to the Srinagar and Baramula road. There is not much left now above ground, for numbers of the ma.s.sive blocks of stone of which the city and temples were built have been taken away ages ago to build the temples of Patan close by, and, alas! also to metal the Baramula road. But the outlines of the walls may still be traced sufficiently well to attest the grand scale on which the city was built; and we know from records that it was built by the same great king Lalataditya, who erected the temple of Martand in the eighth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TERRACE OF THE NISHAT BAGH]

And Parihasapura, like Martand, has been set off to the greatest advantage by natural scenery. This Kashmir king must indeed have been worthy of the beautiful country which he ruled. In his time the Sind and Jhelum rivers met, not at Shadipur as now, but at the edge of the karewa on which Lalataditya built his city. And from the plateau views could be obtained right up the Sind valley to Haramukh and the craggy mountain peaks which bound it on either side; far up and down the main valley, over the fields of emerald rice or golden mustard, and the numerous hamlets hidden in clumps of chenar and willow, mulberry and walnut; over also the glistening reaches of the Jhelum River, to the snowy ranges which at a distance far enough away not to dwarf or overpower the city encircled it on every side. No temple was ever built on a finer site than Martand, and no city was ever set in more lovely surroundings than Parihasapura.

According to a pa.s.sage in the Rajatarangini the king Lalataditya erected five large buildings: (1) a temple of Vishnu Parihasakesava with a silver image; (2) a temple of Vishnu Muktakesava with a golden image; (3) a temple of Vishnu Mahavaraha with an image clad in golden armour; (4) a temple to the G.o.d Govardhanadhara with a silver image; (5) the Rajavihara or monastery with a large quadrangle and a colossal statue of Buddha in copper, which indicate that in ancient times there must have been a large and important Buddhist settlement. The same king is also said to have erected a stone pillar 54 cubits high with an image of Garuda on the top.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] P. 32.

CHAPTER IV

THE RESIDENCY GARDEN

Among the beauties of Kashmir the Residency Garden must surely not be omitted. The Maharaja has provided for the Residency one of the most charming houses in India--a regular English country-house. And successive Residents, in my case aided by Mr. Harrison and Major Wigram, have striven to make the garden worthy of the country and the house. Here grows in perfection every English flower. The wide lawns are as soft and green as any English lawn. All the English fruits--pears, apples, peaches, apricots, plums, greengages, cherries, walnuts, mulberries, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, and strawberries--grow to perfection and in prodigious quant.i.ties; and the magnificent chenar and innumerable birds add a special charm of their own.

Perhaps a record of the cycle of the birds and flowers will give an idea not only of the beauties of the garden, but of the climate of the valley.

Early in March the garden beauties begin to develop. The turf is then still quite brown and the trees leafless, but on March 8th, when I returned to Srinagar this year, violets, pansies, wall-flowers, narcissus, crocuses, and daisies were all in flower. Daffodils, hyacinths, stock and a few carnations were in bud. Columbine and larkspur leaves were sprouting. Peas and broad beans sown in November were a few inches high. And of the trees, willow leaf-buds were just bursting and showing a tinge of fresh light yellow green, and one apricot tree was nearly bursting into blossom. Of birds there were thrushes, minas, bulbuls, sparrows, crows, kites, blue-t.i.ts, hoopoes, and starlings; and of b.u.t.terflies, a few tortoise-sh.e.l.l and cabbage-whites.