Between the years 1526 and 1857, the Mughals were the ones who defined the subcontinent, gave it shape, and instilled a character that at present still churns around us and is visible to our senses. You can still see the vestiges of the Empire through its monuments in all its once-glory (the Taj Mahal as one of them, of all the wonders), you can still hear their folklores and tales in history (their ways of administrating themselves and all the Namas the rulers had commissioned for themselves); you can still taste their rich flavors (from Niharis and Biryanis to using nuts and dried fruits), and you can also touch their walls, their artifacts, their scrolls and other remnants of their past that still levy itself into the present and the future. But what about the sense of smell? Can you smell the Mughal Empire? Can you access your olfactory regions and catch a whiff of their rich cultures, histories, and values? Is the subcontinent still laced with the scent of the Mughals and their traditions? If one puts their noses right in the right places, they might chance upon a version of Mughal history which can only be accessed through the olfactory nature of being. This smell in the nose marks a different substitute for how we witness history in the present — marking it as more of a history of the Mughal scents of India.
In accessing these Mughal scents, this article travels through the use of smell as a sensory regime explores the Empire’s marks on the subcontinent, and reaches the Mughal Gardens itself. In the time of the Mughal reign, they were built by several rulers who all descended from Babur, where the style in which they were constructed often denoted a strive for pleasure and symbolized the sensory nature of their reign’s power and glory itself. For the Mughals, the gardens represented an earthly paradise where nature combined perfectly with human beings – creating a serene utopic balance.
The Scented Fingerprints of Mughal Rulers:
Bagh, baug, bageecha, or bagicha — the Mughals built many of them surrounding important buildings including their ruling places. Largely influenced by the concept of vatikas present in abundant myths of ancient India, which also means wooded ‘pleasure’ gardens, the gardens were filled with aromas of various kinds of flowers and herbs. This included in large quantities flowers like roses (gulab), the Indian lotus (kamal), jasmine (chameli/motia), lilies (Suraj Mukhi), marigold (genda), and herbs like mint (pudina), basil (tulsi), fenugreek (methi), rosemary, saffron (Kesari) among many others. They all contributed to the sensory richness of the Mughal Empire which came to depict status and power, all in the pleasure of churning a pastime. Indeed, it was an imperial pastime as tending to the gardens itself was extremely challenging if not very time-consuming where even though Jahangir as a ruler was known for his love of flowers, he did not build a garden of his own as such but still helped lay out the beautiful Shalimar Garden which still surrounds the northeast part of Dal Lake in Srinagar.
It was Babur who started this escapade of the scent-driven tradition of gardens, and who built gardens in areas like Lahore and Dholpur including the largest recorded garden, Gol Bagh which was filled with greenery up until the time of India’s Independence. It is noted that Babur, who began the Empire in its foundation, borrowed this very idea of a pleasure garden from the Timurid gardens in Central Asia which were an Islamic type of gardens in medieval times. Succeeding him and Humayun, Akbar built several of them too, in places like Delhi and Agra where the latter became his capital of residence and rule itself.
Shah Jahan, the one behind the beauty of the Taj Mahal, had a distinct fascination with greenery and flowers. So much so, that besides the Taj Mahal which serves as a visual pleasure for the power of love — he also built the night garden (of many gardens) surrounding it called Mahtab Bagh. Filled with flowers that bloomed at night like jasmine, it sits across the Yamuna River at Agra. The pale flowers of the Bagh combined with the structural white beauty of the Taj become a large visual and olfactory delight to the visitors and tourists, even at night as it glows under the moonlight. The Mughal Emperors also chose these locations for their gardens carefully. The idea was to contribute to the expansive natural beauty — mountain slopes, high open green spots, and a natural water system that gushed out into the garden were the top priorities.
The Olfactory Legacy of Charbagh :
These gardens served not only as a sensory ride of the smell but also helped symbolize the glory and power of the Empire. The gardens were laid out in the style of the Charbagh which was an Islamic style influenced by the Persian Gardens including the Timurid. Charbagh essentially meant a rectilinear layout with wall enclosures that were well-equipped with flowers and herbs. Between these boxes of layouts, a well-established water system flowed with features like pools, fountains, and canals, all inside the gardens’ walls. The gardens were also perfectly aligned, with a highly disciplined geometrical sense that added to its allurement. Administratively, they all enclosed significant places for the Empire denoting prestige and grandeur for the rulers and kings. From imperial palaces to public buildings, sacred structures to private buildings, they all were enclosed between the Mughal Gardens.
Moreover, the water system was an incredible fleet for the time that the Empire was in power: where it featured a highly developed irrigation channel that helped maintain the balance of nature and natural elements. This system also went on to hugely contribute to the Indian economy even in present times, where large gardens and green lands are equipped with the same water routes and channels, paying allegiance to the Mughals themselves. These water routes, which were inspired by the Persian and Timurid Gardens, worked as the central and connecting attributes for the gardens. The hydraulic system worked efficiently due to the structural integrity and beauty of Charbagh, which when divided into four quadrants comprised of water channels and pathways maintaining the greens, the flowers, and the herbs. The fountains, namely the Salsabil and Uyun, enclosed in these quadrants also represented the ‘life cycle’ for the Mughals as it symbolized time pouring into rains and onto the greens themselves. It is said that Shalimar Bagh alone had 450 fountains that poured the same rains but in a floral effect — the Mughals did love floral and artistic shenanigans when it came to their gardens.
Fragrant Heavens: Mughal Gardens Today
For us mind-boggling, nose-smelling, scent-driven sensory chasers, at present, there are several ways we can catch the whiff of the Empire and relish an olfactory history of the Mughals and Mughal period. In India while there is a handful of them in the north, some surrounding the Humayun’s Tomb in Nizamuddin Delhi, multiple in the Taj Mahal in Agra, and even the famous Ram Bagh in Agra which is also rumored to be the first Charbagh and Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir among most others. Many gardens still can be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan, open to tourists and laid in flowers — all to reveal a whiff of the cultural and traditional history of the Mughals. In a way, history then is among us everywhere at any given moment. The point becomes how to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell it — the latter which as one witnesses in the case of Mughal Gardens is through the smell of its flowers and herbs which all convey the many scents of India itself.
PS. Here’s a fun fact for the readers who might just be preparing their noses for an olfactory adventure of Mughal history. The Mughal Gardens in Delhi which were consciously renamed the Amrit Udyan and which hold a yearly welcome to people to witness the flowers and herbs in bloom — isn’t necessarily so Mughal as it is very British. Yes! The Mughals had nothing to do with those gardens. It was much later after their time that they were designed by Sir Edward Lutyens, the British architect responsible for constructing and designing much of New Delhi. So, while the Mughals weren’t the ones who put to commissioned the gardens, the British designed them in praise and inspired] them — churning a wheel of history from tradition to the present itself.
References:
Dickie, James (1985). “The Mughal Garden”. In Grabar, Oleg (ed.). Muqarnas: An Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture. Vol. 3. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 9004076115.
Crowe, Sylvia (2006). The gardens of Mughul India: a history and a guide. Jay Kay Book Shop. ISBN 978-8-187-22109-8.
Lehrman, Jonas Benzion (1980). Earthly paradise: garden and courtyard in Islam. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04363-4.
(2010). “Mughal Gardens in Kashmir”. https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5580/#:~:text=The%20celebrated%20Mughal%20gardens%20of,of%20the%20traditional%20paradise%20gardens.
Behera, Sonali (2022). “All About Mughal Gardens: History, Key Features, and Types”. In Krishi Jargan. https://krishijagran.com/agripedia/all-about-mughal-gardening-history-key-features-and-types/
Author’s note:
Charvi Bhatnagar
Charvi is a researcher in the humanities and loves connecting dots between stories, people, and their impressions of the world. While a typical day for her includes a lot of books and Word documents, she believes there’s always a gripping story hidden behind plain old facts. One could easily find her obsessing over trivia, solving random logical reasoning quizzes, and experimenting with poetry and the written word.
