A garden enclosed-a garden of living waters,
And flowing streams from Lebanon:
Awake, O North Wind; and come thou South,
Blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out.
Song of Songs [Bible -Book of Solomon]
A GARDEN enclosed-a garden of living waters, a garden of sweet perfumes-'that the spices thereof may flow out'-here from the Song of Songs are the three first motives of Indian garden-craft. First, there is the charm of contrast, that magic contrast so vivid in the East, the meeting of 'the desert and the sown' at the garden's boundary walls; next, the need of running water, without which no plants or flowers could survive the fierce sunshine; and last, the motive for the moonlit garden, to Indians the most beautiful of all, the garden of sweet perfumes and soft lights.
Indian gardening, like every other Indian art, is closely interwoven with the history of the country, and the artistic traditions and religious ideals of its designers played a far larger part in the ordering and planting of the gardens than is usual in European pleasure-grounds. Many of us have seen and admired the great terraces, canals, and tanks of the ruined Mughal gardens of Upper India and Kashmir, beautiful even in their present uncared-for state, their vast plan and solid building surviving in defiant grandeur past neglect and devastation. But few English people seem to be aware how close was the relation of these Eastern gardens, where not only the general design but each flower and tree, had originally its symbolic meaning and method of arrangement, to the life and traditions of their builders.
