Persian gardens [See also Travellers Tales of Persian Gardens and note on Garden of Eden]
The Persian word 'paradise' simply meant a 'walled enclosure'. It may derive from the Avestan roots pairi (around) and diz (shape). The word Paradise was subsequently used for the Garden of Eden, the abode of God and the place where the virtuous live after death. The dream of a perfect place is very ancient and appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh:
It was thought of as the 'garden of the gods' and described as a 'paradise'. Earthly gardens were made as representations of paradise. Water symbolised life, as it was believed to be the source of life. Irrigation canals made cultivation possible. Parts of the Iranian plateau were under cultivation by 3,000 BC. Plants and trees symbolised dieties. Ceramic representations of the world divided into four quarters with a pool of life at the centre date to 4,000 BC. An Akkadian king proclaimed himself King of the Four Quarters. The chahar bagh (quadripartite garden, from chahar, four + bagh, garden) idea dates to at least 2000 BC but it is not known when the first gardens were laid out on this pattern. Mehdi Khansari et al suggest they date from Achaemenid times but there is no physical evidence of this. Your editor's guess (equally unsupported) is that the first 'four square' gardens date from over 1,000 years later (600 AD).
The Persians made three types of garden, as did the Egyptians:
The oldest Persian garden of which there are records belonged to Cyrus the Great c546 BC, in his capital, at Pasargadae in the province of Fars, from which Persia takes its name, to the north of Shiraz. The garden had a geometrical plan and stone watercourses. Cyrus the Great destroyed the Babylonian empire and established the Achaemenid Empire. It was an empire of great gardeners but it is thought that the gardens were used as places to admire from a raised platform (or window or roof), or to take an occasional walk. Eating and other social activities would take place in the garden pavilions, catching the breeze but protected from the sun. Gardens contained fruit trees and flowers, including the lily and rose. In 330 BC Alexander the Great saw the tomb of Cyrus the Great and recorded that it stood in an irrigated grove of trees.
Chahar Bagh (pronounced' ch-haar-bah') describes the 'four square' plan of a Persian paradise garden. The oldest example of a rectangular canal pattern is at Passargadae. The path shown crossing the canal is however conjectural and the oldest plan of a square divided into quadrants was made some 1,000 years after Passargadae.
Darius I (521-485 BC) built a ceremonial capital at Persepolis and an administrative capital at Susa. The later was a walled and moated city, a Paridaeza, a city in a garden and a garden city.
When Cyrus the Younger showed his palace garden at Sardis to a Greek in 407 BC, he called it a pairidaeza and explained; 'All these things, Lysander, I measured out and ordered myself, and there are some of them that I even planted myself'. Precise geometrical regularity was the outstanding characteristic of Persian gardens. It was combined with mystical a love of flowers, trees and, above all, water. Water was used in channels and trees were planted in rows.
Persia was conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century and deeply influenced by Islam thereafter. But Islamic gardens were deeply influenced by the Persian tradition of garden making. The Balkuwara Palace (or Bulkawara Palace) in Samara is very much part of the Persian tradition and had a quadripartite garden flanked by pavilions.
See diagram of Paradise garden (though the word 'paradise' was originally used for a hunting park)
Persia was sacked by the Mongols, including Genghis Khan after 1219 and Timur Tamerlane after 1381. The country was ruined and the people massacred. But the Mongols adopted the language and culture of their victims. Timur Tamerlane transported craftsmen to his capital at Samerkand, now in Uzbekistan. A Spanish ambassador, Clavijo, visited the city in 1403-6 and left a vivid account of its gardens.
Vita Sackville West visited Persia in 1927 contributed a chapter on Persian Gardens to Arberry's The Legacy of Persia in 1953. She summarised their characteristics as follows :
She was unable to resist adding that:
Vita's sexual romanticising is typical both of her and of the way in which nineteenth century Europe viewed The East. Nor can one say she was entirely wrong, remembering the erotic scenes depicted in Persian miniatures. Yet Vita gave a better account of the classical role of the Persian garden with the following anecdote and comment:
As she says, the Persian garden was essentially 'a place where he wants to sit and entertain his friends with conversation, music, philosophical discourse, and poetry'. This pattern of use is closer to that of a Temple Garden than a Domestic Garden.
Books on Persian Gardens
A J Arberry The Legacy of Persia (Oxford University Press 1953) Chapter 10 'Persian Gardens' (pp 259-291) by Vita Sackville-West.
Elizabeth B Moynihan Paradise as a garden: in Persia and Mughal India (Scolar Press, London, 1980)
Mehdi Khansari, M. Reza Moghtader, Minouch Yavari The Persian garden: echoes of Paradise (Mage Publishers, Washington DC, 1998) This is an excellent book, with specially drawn plans and good photographs - see book jacket below.
Sylvia Crowe and Sheila Haywood The gardens of Mughul India (Thames and Hudson, 1972). See book jacket below.