The Mughal Imperial gardens consisted, as we have seen, of three large enclosures, opening one out of the other: the semi-public garden of the Diwan-i-Am; the Emperors garden with its Diwan-i-Khas, where he received his princes and chiefs; and the purdah garden of the Empress and her ladies. If the palace at New Delhi could form part of a scheme with a great Imperial Indian garden, with its symbolic divisions, water-ways, avenues, fountains, and walls, Indian art would receive a stimulus and Indian loyalty a lead which it would be impossible to overrate, although hard to believe in England, where the gardens, beautiful as they are, lack the practical use and deeper religious significance of Indian garden-craft.
Far, and far, our homes are set round the Seven Seas; Woe to us if we forget, we that hold by these: Unto each his mother-beach, bloom, and bird, and land- Masters of the Seven Seas, oh ! love and understand.
The Flowers-RUDYARD KIPLING.
Lo ! ye shall read it in the Sacred Books How, being met in that glad pleasaunce-place- A garden in old days with hanging walls, Fountains, and tanks, and rose-banked terraces Girdled by gay pavilions and the sweep Of stately palace-fronts-the Master sate Eminent, worshipped, all the earnest throng Watching the opening of his lips to learn That wisdom which hath made our Asia mild; Whereto four thousand lakhs of living souls Witness this day.-
The Light of Asia-Sir EDWIN ARNOLD.
