Shalamar Gardens, Lahore

• 1. Introduction

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  The Shalamar Gardens of Lahore took exactly 17 months and 14 days to build. Construction began on the 6th of June 1641, beside the village of Baghbanpura on the eastern edge of the city. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the project during the height of Mughal artistic achievement. By 1642, three terraced platforms stretched across 16 hectares of Punjab flatland. The gardens were designed as a Charbagh, the Persian paradise garden. The Mughals inherited this form from Timurid builders working in Central Asia and Iran between the 14th and 16th centuries. A Charbagh was conceived as a literal earthly utopia, where humans exist in perfect harmony with nature. Every natural element of a bagh deserved attention: the sun, the moon, and the air itself. The enclosed garden stays noticeably cooler than surrounding areas. This relief matters in a city where summer temperatures climb above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the name of the place has been disputed for centuries, drawing arguments from court historians, Sanskrit scholars, and at least one unimpressed maharaja.

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• 2. A Name in Dispute

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  Farah Bakhsh, meaning 'Delightful,' was the gardens' original name, used until the reign of Shah Alam I. The name most people use today traces back to historians of Nader Shah, who called the place 'Shola-i-Mah,' meaning 'Ray of the Moon.' Neither label has a settled origin. One theory traces 'Shalamar' to the Sanskrit 'shala,' meaning house or abode. This root pairs with either the Turkic 'mar,' meaning joy, or the Kashmiri 'mar,' meaning stream. The result is either 'abode of joy' or 'abode of streams.' Muhammad Ishtiaq Khan proposed a different derivation altogether. He traced the name to two Kashmiri words: 'shali,' meaning rice paddy, and 'mar,' meaning black loamy soil. His reading gives 'Shalamar' the meaning of 'black soil for growing rice paddy.'

  Maharaja Ranjit Singh's courtiers presented their own theory during a formal debate at court. They argued that 'shala' was Turkic for pleasure and 'mar' meant the place to live in. Ranjit Singh was not persuaded. He believed 'shala' was the Punjabi word for God and 'mar' meant curse. Together, they gave the gardens the unsettling meaning of 'curse of God.' His solution was to rename them 'Shahla Bagh,' from the Persian 'shahla,' meaning a sweetheart with black eyes, and 'bagh,' meaning garden. The historian Syad Muhammad Latif recorded that courtiers praised the maharaja's ingenuity. Orders went out that this new name appear in all public correspondence. The name that endured, however, was the one the gardens already carried. What Ali Mardan Khan built for Shah Jahan had a longer life than any of the debates it provoked.

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• 3. Building on Borrowed Ground

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  Ishaq Pura, the site Shah Jahan selected for the gardens, did not belong to the Mughal crown. The land had long been held by the Arain Mian family. Their head at the time, Mian Muhammad Yusuf, ceded it to the emperor for the gardens to be built. Shah Jahan's offer in return was governance. He granted the Arain Mian family authority over the gardens themselves, and that arrangement held for more than 350 years.

  Khalilullah Khan, a noble at Shah Jahan's court, managed the project in cooperation with Mulla Alaul Maulk Tuni. The primary builder was Ali Mardan Khan, and his central problem was water. Shah Jahan's father, Emperor Jahangir, had built the older Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir. That garden sat on naturally sloping terrain that fed its waterworks without artificial engineering. Lahore offered no such advantage. Ali Mardan Khan's answer was a canal stretching 100 miles from the foothills of Kashmir to the garden site. According to Muhammad Saleh Kamboh, Shah Jahan's court historian, the Kashmir gardens provided the direct inspiration for the Lahore design. He noted that a wide variety of trees and flowers grew together in the new garden. High brick walls bearing intricate fretwork enclosed the site. The flat terrain Ali Mardan Khan worked with ultimately shaped the geometric solution the garden required.

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• 4. The Terraced Paradise

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  The Shalimar Gardens form a rectangle measuring 658 metres from north to south and 258 metres across. The rectangle follows a strict north-south axis. Three terraces rise from the lower entrance to the highest point of the complex. Each level sits 4-5 metres, or 13-15 feet, higher than the one below it. Access to each terrace was regulated by the social hierarchy of the Mughal court.

  The lower terrace opened onto the Grand Trunk Road, serving as the entrance for noblemen and occasional public visitors. The middle terrace was the Emperor's Garden, designed to contain the most elaborate waterworks of any Mughal garden complex. The highest terrace was reserved for the Emperor's harem. Each level carried its own name. The uppermost was called Bagh-e-Farah Baksh, meaning 'Bestower of Pleasure.' The middle and lower terraces together were known as Bagh-e-Faiz Baksh, meaning 'Bestower of Goodness.' The first and third terraces were both square in shape. The second was a narrow rectangle.

  Long fountains divide each of the square terraces into four smaller squares. Elevated brick walkways called khayaban flank these fountains, designed to give better views across the garden. The gardens contain a royal bath known as a Hammam, sleeping chambers called Khwabgah, and summer pavilions known as Baradaries. Within the complex stands a Diwan-e-Khas-o-Aam, the Hall of special and ordinary audience with the emperor. Water runs through every level of the complex. Its distribution across the three terraces follows a pattern the Mughals planned with unusual precision.

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• 5. Four Hundred Fountains

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  Four hundred and fourteen fountains fill the Shalimar Gardens, each discharging into a wide marble pool. No other Mughal garden holds as many. The count breaks down by terrace: 105 on the upper level, 152 on the middle, and 153 on the lower. Together with the garden's dense foliage, these fountains keep the enclosed space noticeably cooler than surrounding areas. That cooling was built into the design, not arrived at by chance.

  The gardens contain five water cascades in total, including the great marble cascade and a feature called Sawan Bhadoon. Where cascades ran between terraces, they flowed over marble paths called chadors, meaning 'curtains,' and emptied into the middle terrace. The water there gathered in large pools known as hauz. Seating pavilions were built over each hauz, giving the court a place to rest directly above the water. The Sawan Bhadoon pavilions also stand among the garden's structures, sharing their name with one of the cascades. What the Mughals built here would prove difficult for their successors to leave untouched.

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• 6. After the Empire

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  During the Sikh Empire's rule over Lahore, workers stripped much of the garden's marble and transported it to Amritsar. The marble went into the Golden Temple and the Ram Bagh Palace. The gardens' costly agate gate was taken down and sold by Lehna Singh Majithia. In 1806, Maharaja Ranjit Singh ordered the Shalimar Gardens to be repaired.

  An annual festival called Mela Chiraghan had long taken place within the gardens. In 1958, General Ayub Khan forbade it. Four years later, in 1962, Ayub Khan nationalised the gardens outright. Leading members of the Arain Mian family had opposed Ayub Khan's imposition of martial law in Pakistan. That family had governed the gardens since Shah Jahan's original agreement. The family's custodianship of more than 350 years ended by government decree.

  In 1981, UNESCO inscribed the Shalimar Gardens on the World Heritage List alongside the Lahore Fort. The recognition cited the 1972 World Heritage Convention. It acknowledged the gardens as embodying Mughal garden design at the peak of its development. The gardens are now one of Pakistan's most popular tourist destinations. Visitors reach them along the Grand Trunk Road, which has run past the garden walls since the Mughals chose the site.

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