The Rich Heritage of Landscaping in India: from 'vanas' to Green Cities (original) (raw)

Gardens have been in existence for a long time and evolved over time. The oldest types of garden were probably the "forest garden" of the prehistoric period. The 'Agni Purana', written about 4000 years ago, mentions that human should protect trees to have material gains and religious blessings. In India, the history of gardening dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished between 2500 BCE and 1500 BCE. The Aryan's epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) of the vedic period have also reference to palaces which had beautiful gardens, trees, flowers, fruits and lakes filled with lotus flowers. During the Buddhist period, the gardens were commonly called as 'vana'. The great emperor Asoka (273-232 BC), developed arboriculture as well as avenue plantation in his time. During the Gupta dynasty, Kalidas (about 57 BC) had written a famous play 'Shakuntala' in which there is a mention of pleasure garden, whereas, 'Amarakosha' a thesaurus of Sanskrit considered as encyclopedia of nature, which covers investigation of plants and gardens, was also written by scholar Amarasimha. The Chola Dynasty was also fascinated towards gardens and flowers and made gardens around their palaces. In Acharya Sarngadhara 's Sarngadhara-Paddhati (1300 AD), a whole chapter is dedicated to 'The Upavana-Vinoda', a sanskrit treatise on Arbori-Horticulture. With the arrivals of Mughal rulers in India, Mughal garden in formal style of gardening was introduced. Some of the magnificent formal gardens viz., Aram Bagh, Nasim Bagh, Shalimar gardens were created. Apart from Mughals, other major contribution was from Firoz Shah Tughlaq who developed gardens around Delhi and also Sher Shah Suri, who planted avenue trees on both sides of Grant trunk road made by him. The Rajput kings were also great admirer of gardens. King Man Singh began the famous garden at Amber Fort which was later finished by Jai Singh II (1699-1743 A.D.). Raja Abhai Singh (1724-1749 A.D.) designed The Mandor garden near Jodhpur whereas Suraj Mal built the garden palace at Deeg, Rajasthan, which had fountains and also water courses. At Orchha (in Madhya Pradesh), The Rai Praveen Mahal overlooks the large garden i.e. Anand Mahal Bagh. The Ahhichatragarh Fort (Nagpur) also had beautiful garden with lotus pools and water tanks. The long history of gardens and aesthetic sense which evolved later during the British India and after independence particularly evolving of green cities in modern India has been compiled in this paper.