Pinjora Gardens In India

2023 Author: Ashton Daniels | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-22 02:25

View from Shish Mahal Palace

Pinjora Gardens are located in the Indian state of Harayana, 22 km from the famous city of Chandigarh on the road to Shimla. Many tourists heading to the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh are unaware that they are passing near one of the most interesting and well-preserved landmarks in India.

The fortress wall of the Pingjor Garden

Entrance to Pingjor Garden

Mosaic dome entrance

Garden sign

It is a rich aristocratic garden often compared to the Shalimar Garden in Pakistani Lahore, which is considered the finest example of a Muslim garden.

How it all began, tells a medieval legend. The Pandava brothers, after defeating a hostile family, doomed themselves to voluntary exile. At the foot of the Himalayas, they discovered a source, which they called Pingjor. They settled nearby, and centuries later this place was turned into a wonderful garden.

View from Shish Mahal Palace

Shish Mahal from the south side

View of the Rang Mahal palace

Pavilion on the third terrace

The Pingjor Gardens date back to the Mughal period and were founded in 1661 by General Nawab Fidai Khan, the foster brother of the Mughal Khan Aurangzeb. The Hindu temple of Bhima, which was destroyed, was not spared for the construction, and its huge monolithic slabs formed the basis of this "country" garden.

The encroachment on Hindu shrines was not forgiven by the locals and the Brahmanas (as Indian officials are called). They went for a trick - they began to send the ugliest people with goiter to work for the khan and his wives. So they managed to convince the khan that a terrible disease often affects those who live in these parts. In the end, Fidai Khan and his harem chose a safer place in his residence in the Himalayas, handing over the garden to the raja of Bhivan.

From him the garden passed to the raja of Sirmur, and in 1778 the Maharaj of Panshali Amar Singh annexed it to his principality and rebuilt the pavilions according to the Sikan canons. Later, the gardens were abandoned, overgrown and turned into a jungle.

Only in the middle of the 20th century, Yadavindra Singh, a former local maharaja, began to restore the garden and turned it into a recreation park, which he handed over to the state. Since then, this place has often been called the Yadavindra Gardens.

From the outside, the Pingjor Garden resembles a fort; it is surrounded by a strong fortress wall and battlement towers. As in any Muslim garden, these walls hide a piece of Paradise on Earth from the eyes. It was the solidity of the buildings that made it possible to see the garden well preserved when, after a long period of oblivion, it appeared before archaeologists in 1974. Now everyone can buy a ticket and visit this monument of Mughal architecture.

Royal palms (Roystonea regia)

A winding path to the Rang Mahal observation deck

The garden is long. The main axis is viewed from the entrance to the very end. It is a series of reservoirs-pools with fountains located on seven terraces descending to the south. At the entrance, on the first terrace, there is the Shish Mahal ("palace of glass"), the whiteness of which emphasizes the splendor of the building. A wonderful view opens from the observation deck of the palace through the openwork arches.

On the sides are mighty royal palms (Roystonea regia syn. Oreodo xa regia). The fruits of these palms are eaten by birds and bats, and the trees serve as a place for them to spend the night. These palms are truly king-size - they reach 35 m in height, have a smooth light gray trunk about 50 cm in diameter and usually 15 leaves up to 4 m long. This palm tree is also surprising in that it carries nitrogen-fixing bacteria on its roots, which are extremely rare for monocotyledonous plants.

Bats on the royal palm

Sea of bats

On the second terrace there is another, two-storey Rang Mahal palace ("painted palace"), to the left and right of which there are guest houses. Water flows freely under this palace, flowing down from the other side in a small waterfall. In any Islamic garden, water should not make noise; it is designed to delight the ear and soothe a person. There are niches here, where clay lamps with oil used to be placed, which gave a mysterious evening illumination, soft as moonlight.

Above water pavilion

One author wrote about the geometry of Muslim gardens as follows: "It was on irrigation that the existence of gardens in Arabia, Persia and India depended, and it was the irrigation system that gave the garden its shape." Irrigation canals run perpendicularly from the central basins, feeding the orchards behind the palms with water. They can instantly flood all terraces.

The third terrace is surrounded by greenery, and the fourth has a huge fountain. There are also fountains and trees on the next terrace. And on the last one there is an open-air theater.

The sixth terrace is surrounded by greenery

Open air theater

This garden is often called a garden of flowers, but in May we saw few flowering plants here - an accidentally lost bindweed, some bougainvilleas and container plants, and mostly strict hibiscus borders with rare flowers that survived after cutting. Tasty fruits of sapodilla (their local name is chiku) ripened on the trees, mango began to pour. The income from these fruit plantations is used to maintain the garden, or rather the park, as it is now more commonly called.

Hibiscus hedge

Bougainvillea

Indian mango (Mangifera indica)

Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota)

This garden and the surrounding area now belong to the Raja Puteala, who himself never comes here. The garden is looked after by a servant, for whom two small houses are reserved.

Photo: Rita Brilliantova