Lahore is often called the “city of gardens”. Even though it earns that name, very few of its historic gardens still exist today, and even fewer have been preserved in a state close to their original condition. Shalamar is a notable exception to this pattern. Spanning almost forty acres across three wide terraces, it truly showcases Mughal skill in landscape design unlike any other monument in Lahore.
Before Shalamar, Mughal emperors were well familiar with garden construction. The founder of the dynasty, Babur, built several gardens both during and after his invasion of the Indian subcontinent. As his memoirs show, he had a strong interest in recording and describing the flora and fauna of the Indian landscape, and his gardens usually included native plants. Nevertheless, Babur never felt comfortable in the dry climate of Hindustan and preferred the cooler climate of the Afghan mountains, his childhood home. On his death, Babur instructed that he be buried in a grave covered with earth in present-day Kabul, not in a garden tomb on the subcontinent.
When Babur’s successors built a bigger and more varied empire, the gardens they created served several functions. Practically speaking, they offered a setting where the imperial court could stay reasonably comfortable as the emperor and his retinue moved from one place to another. After a long day’s travel, the imperial gardens situated along the Grand Trunk Road and other roads would have been a pleasant place to stop and escape from the extremely dry terrain of northern India. Politically, these gardens also signaled imperial conquest.
Mughal gardens could be readily distinguished from earlier types in northern India because they were not only larger than previous gardens but also emphasized axis, symmetry, and balance. The so-called char bagh gardens (literally “four gardens”) were based on the paradise gardens mentioned in the Qur’an and on the Persian examples to the west. Neither the Indian type nor the Persian model had been seen before in India, and such gardens were evidence of the Mughals’ control over the landscape.
The Shalamar Garden was originally built by Jahangir in Kashmir, just as the garden of the same name was. The Mughals had long been interested in the Kashmir region, and Babur tried to go there in 1554 but couldn’t complete the journey because of the political situation. Akbar took over the area in 1586, and captured the capital, Srinagar, in 1589. Akbar was immediately impressed by Kashmir’s beauty. The region consisted of a valley 150 kilometers long, offering magnificent viThee was tempered by the Pir amoderated its climate, buffering itch acted as a barriermonsoon climate coming from the south.
The Jhelum River ran down the center of the valley and was well supplied with water from seasonal snowmelt in the surrounding mountains. Amid the green landscape, Akbar set up several gardens, possibly including the Garden of Breezes (Nasim Bagh) on the western side of Dal Lake; he may also have built floating gardens on boats that he used when traveling on the Jhelum River.
Akbar’s son, Jahangir, built the first Shalamar garden in Kashmir. He chose the location in 1620 and had his son, the future Shah Jehan, help dam a stream to irrigate the garden. This experience likely had a deep impact on the future Shah, since he went on to build gardens throughout his life that generally followed a design similar to the Shalimar in Kashmir.
Shah Jehan saw the garden as equal to any other the Mughals had previously constructed. This garden used the magnificent backdrop of the Himalaya mountains, which supplied water year-round and offered views of snow-covered peaks that remained visible even in the hotter months. It sat on three wide terraces over gradually sloping ground, and the height difference enabled fountains to be built with enough water pressure to create remarkable hydraulic effects. The garden included several splendid marble pavilions, which offered spaces for reflecting on the scenery or for carrying out the business of the court.
Even though Kashmir might have been an earthly paradise, it was not suitable as a permanent capital for the Mughal Empire. Fatehpur-Sikri had previously held this position, but Lahore in present-day Pakistan supplanted it in the 1590s. Lahore’s climate differs greatly from Kashmir’s. Although the Ravi supplied it with water, the climate was considerably hotter than in Kashmir, and the landscape was almost entirely flat. Akbar and Jahangir had made every effort to construct gardens on a large scale here (for example, the Shahdara garden). Still, hydraulic effects were limited by the lack of water pressure, which could be obtained without machine power only by changing elevation.
In the 1620s or 1630s, a major flood occurred in Lahore and revealed a low bank at the edge of the Ravi River. Although this bank was only a few meters higher than the adjacent floodplain, it offered the best opportunity in the Lahore region to establish a Kashmiri-type garden. The location was rather is — ated—being about a ide to the east of — e Laalamar garden by Kalil Ullah Khan, an iman who Shah Jahan had instructed to find an appgarden, chose it as the future Shalamar ropriate place for a garden. By 1641, however, the aqueduct’s narrative became linked with that of Ali Mardan Khan, the former governor of Kandahar, who handed the city over to the Mughals in return for wealth and safe passage.
Ali Mardan Khan also had knowledge of constructing qanats (underground canals). So Shah Jahan gave him the task of constructing a canal from Rajpur, at the foothills of the Himalayas, all the way to Lahore. This canal would cover more than 160 kilometers and supply enough water to promote settlement in the part of the Punjab northeast of Lahore (an area that was rather sparsely populated). The canal would end at the upper terrace of Tenoughr Garden, and the remaining water would be enough to power hundreds of fountains.
Ali Mardan Khan was given 100,000 rupees to finance the canal’s construction. Although the work was carried out rapidly, his engineers made a mistake, and the canal failed to produce any water. Ali Mardan Khan then asked for an additional 50,000 rupees, a sum which Shah Jehan granted. The canal was regraded and improved but still did not work. Even so, because Ali Mardan Khan was in good favor with Shah Jahan, the emperor took back authority over the project and appointed Mulla Alaul Mulk in his place.
Using only an extra 50,000 rupees and the first 16 kilometers of Ali Mardan Khan’s original canal, Mulla Alaul Mulk rebuilt the canal and enabled water from the Himalayas to reach Shalamar after traveling across the plains of Punjab. Because of its great usefulness, the Punjab area became considerably more fertile in later years. The canal was in use until the mid-19th century when it was replaced by the Upper Bari Doab canal, which followed a course only slightly parallel to it and originated from the same source in present-day Madhopur, India.
When Shalamar was first established, it was likely the only settlement at the edge of the Ravi River, yet it became a benchmark for further development in the area. Specifically, the Grand Trunk Road, which linked Lahore and Delhi, was redirected northwards to run along the Ghore Shah road by the garden’s lower terrace; this led to the settlement of nearby villages such as Baghbanpura, where garden workers and nobles employed by Shah Jahan’s court lived. Additional urbanization then took place to the southeast as graveyards were built around the mausoleums of the well-known Sufi saints.
The Shalamar garden did not fare well in the years following Shah Jahan’s death. During the rule of Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan’s successor, architectural patronage declined overall, although the magnificent Badshahi Mosque still stands today; little else was built in Lahore. After Aurangzeb’s time, Lahore’s situation worsened as the Mughal Empire declined. In the early 1800s, people removed most of the gardens’ marble furnishings. Most existing buildings are reconstructions made of plaster and brick.
