Although the Central Asian garden had many symbolic and traditional characteristics, and was so closely interwoven with Mughal architecture, the bostand (orchard) was the only practical necessity to a Mohammedan, and the gulistand (flower garden) may be looked on more in the light of a charming luxury, gracing with its pretty poetic fancies the stern material Moslem point of view, like the rose sprays waving over the sharp stone edges of the raised garden paths. With Hindus, on the other hand, a flower garden is essential, as flowering shrubs and trees are the first requirement in the proper performance of daily worship. Every temple and private house has its garden, for flowers and leaves are considered worthless as offerings unless they are picked in the givers own domain. No wild or jungle flowers may be used. Manucci was much struck by the old temple gardens, and says in his Storia do Mogor: 'At every temple of their idols (called pagodas) there is usually an annexed flower-garden, just as in our parish churches in Europe, without comparing the two, there are graveyards. This garden is not less worthy of veneration and respect by these peoples, for every day the officiating priests told off for the purpose gather these the flowers with which they adorn some idols and embellish others. Such gardens are to them what some cemetery is to us where the bodies of saints lie, from which flows some miraculous liquid capable of curing maladies that cannot be benefited by ordinary and natural remedies, or let us say like some culturable land bequeathed and vowed to any one of our churches so that the corn produced may be applied for the use of holy men.'
