فصلنامه گلستان هنر
سال چهارم شماره 2 (پیاپی 12، تابستان 1387)

To achieve a valid understanding and interpretation of Persian/ Iranian garden, the scholar should study its status and its relations with Iranian life in Persian culture. Culture manifests three levels in human life: (1) the self-conscious and voluntary level, (2) the self-conscious and involuntary level, and (3) the unconscious (involuntary) level. The third one, the unconscious involuntary level, is the most hidden and, at the same time, the deepest and the most effective level. Considering every manmade as a mirror of human culture, a deep understanding of any culture and its levels, especially its third level, can be achieved. If the scholar attends to the life accommodated in the Persian garden, instead of contenting himself/herself with the formal and physical aspects of it, he/she can grasp new aspects of the garden, which leads him/her to its very nature. The importance of lightweight architecture (tent) is one of the neglected aspects of Persian garden. Having priority of recreation and excursion over economic exploitation of garden is another aspect of Persian garden. The latter manifests a characteristic of Iranian culture: rendi and poetic manner. Including the infinite world in the finite space of garden, and bringing the garden up to the public sphere as an urban space— in the form of khiyaban or chaharbagh— are other aspects of Persian garden.

Persian garden was a microcosm of the Islamic celestial garden, a place for pleasure, an instinct part of the economy of Iranian Golestān-e Honar 12, Summer 2008 4 agriculture, and also a symbol of the kings' territory. The connection between kingship and the garden can be traced back to the time of Achaemenids, in which it functioned as a royal palace residence, more than just a botanical garden or a hunting park. As for the terrestrial garden of medieval Iran, the details of its layout and design are described in only one medieval Persian textual source: Ershad al-Zera'ah , composed by Qassem b. Yusof Abu-Nasri in Herat in 921 AH/ 1515 AD. The last chapter of the work is devoted to the layout of chaharbagh, which represents an architectural garden constructed according to precise measurements and specifications, and planted in a prescribed way. The chief source of information for the author was Mirak-e Seyyed Ghiyas, the most prominent landscape architect of 15th Century Iran. He was a member of a family of landscape architects in Timurid period and one of the elites circle related to Mir-Alishir Navayi. After Timurids' descend, he immigrated to Bukhara and took the chahar-bagh pattern to Transoxiana. In 935 AH/ 1529 AD, he traveled to India, to the court of Zahir al- Din Babur, and introduced there the garden pattern. It was his son, Mohammad-e Mirak, who built Homayun's tomb-garden in Delhi in 978 AH/ 1570-1571 AD. It was the very pattern of the tomb-garden that used in the design of Taj-Mahal.

The article is one of the unpublished works of the late Dr. Pirniya, which reached Golestan-e Honar by the agency of one of his disciples. The main points of the article are familiar and already published in his other articles; nevertheless, it has other new points. The article, as usual in the author’s work, begins with an etymology of the word (garden/ paradise) and the origin of garden in Iranian myths and languages. Defining the pattern of Persian garden, its trees and flowers types and their beds, water course, water system, and water techniques in Persian garden are the other subjects of the article.

The garden and its imagery exerted a profound influence on the medieval Persian poetic imagination, which transposed the heightened sense of natural reality projected by the terrestrial garden onto the metaphorical plane. The mystical garden was thus part of the landscape of what Henry Corbin termed a "visionary geography," a mundus imaginalis . It was an imaginal world that exists in the imagination –the 'alam al-mithal of the Islamic theosophers and the 'olam ha-demut of the medieval Jewish Kabbalists. Entering into this world of sensory and spiritual awareness was often compared by medieval Persian mystical poets to the synaesthetic experience of a garden in which visual, auditory, and olfactory stimulants converge to produce a heightened mental state. A parallel usage of the garden as a metaphor for esoteric speculation is attested in the medieval Jewish tradition; moreover, it exhibits an interesting Persian dimension. It was the Old Persian loanword, pardes, that was used in the talmudic tale about the four rabbinical sages "who entered the pardes ," that is, the realm of esoteric speculation concerning the true meaning of the Torah . Although the technique of visionary ascent in merkabah mysticism originally implied a physical displacement, the entrance into a supernal pardes-garden was also interpreted by pre-Kabbalistic authors as an ascent of the soul. This type of visionary ascent in early Jewish mysticism, which also had an initiatory dimension, bears a striking resemblance to the spiritual journey in Islam, Golestān-e Honar 12, Summer 2008 5 which was inspired by the ascent (mi'raj ) of the prophet Muhammad through the seven heavens to attain a vision of the divine Throne. The organ or faculty that enables the mystic to penetrate the imaginal world of the garden and to perceive it is the heart (dil ). Since the heart is the intermediary between the two worlds, the image seen in this doublemirroring represents an intermediate reality –the 'alam al-mithal – and not a veridical one. The heart's capacity to "see" is thus likened to a metal mirror that has been highly polished and is therefore capable of reflection. This metaphor is shared by the medieval Jewish mystical tradition which differentiated between a "mirror that shines" and a "mirror that does not shine". The dilemma faced by those who possessed the secrets of esoteric knowledge was how to preserve their secrecy while at the same time communicating them to others. To this end, in addition to metaphorical symbolism, the Persian poets employed paronomasia – the pun, and the paradox – the seemingly contradictory statement. And it is in the realm of word play, double meaning, and amphibology that the Persian language proved to be an unparalleled vehicle for mystical expression. The spiritual transformation that is achieved through entrance into the garden of esoteric speculation is a leaving behind of one's self and the retrieval of a superior self. It is a journey that starts in a place and that returns to No-place. Like the journey of the birds to the court of the Simurgh, or the entrance of the rabbinical sages into the pardes-garden, it entails a displacement, an ekstasis, that results in a change of state, but one that still forms part of oneself. This is the secret of the garden as metaphor for esoteric speculation – it is man himself transformed through the power of his own creative imagination. And it is poetic language alone that has the power to reveal the secret by concealing it behind the veil of poetic allusion.

The Safavid kings were great garden builders, and yet the history of their gardens is not well known. Archaeology, urban history, Persian literary and pictorial sources as well as the accounts of European travelers who visited these gardens provide a rich array of sources that have rarely been studied as a whole. Yet there is a major difficulty. We lack a clear definition of a garden from the perspective of Safavid culture. Instead of assuming that form or spatial design constitutes a defining feature of a garden, we shall take a broad look at changes brought by Safavid kings into their cities and at the relationships between their gardens and specific urban spaces. First, we shall study the Safavid garden cities and their poetic description to achieve an understanding of the aesthetic reception of Safavid gardens. Second, we shall use pictorial representations of gardens in miniatures to establish a broad definition of a Persian garden, including private, public and princely gardens in the same concept. Third, a survey of the major garden creations and kingly rituals between 1587 and 1629 will show how the kings developed gardens in their cities and in particular in the capital cities for establishing some degree of control over their subjects and strengthening the legitimacy of their dynasty.

Chehel-Sotun Garden is one of the royal gardens built by Shah Abbas I in the royal Golestān-e Honar 12, Summer 2008 6 quarter of Isfahan. Other Safavid kings, especially Shah Abbas II, developed its pavilion. In Qajar period, especially in the reign of Zel-os-Soltan in Isfahan province, the garden and its pavilion were neglected. In the early Pahlavi period, some changes were made in the building. Studying administrative and military documents of the period can lighten the condition of the garden and pavilion in the early Pahlavi and late Qajar periods.

Ali-abad (‘alī-‘ābād) complex, next to Tehran- Qom old road, on the fringe of Dasht-i-Kavir, is one of the important road facilities of Qajar period. Based on historical reports, its patron was Amin-os-soltan (a Qajar vizier). The complex consisted of buildings like caravanserai, garden, bathroom, mill, bakery, teahouse, and icehouse, which were built in several phases as required. The kanat, caravanserai, and garden are the most important components of the complex. The garden design does not follow the classic Persian garden pattern known as chahar-bagh. Instead, it follows the functional requirements, topography, soil, water flow, and other environmental circumstances. This garden, with other in-road gardens of Iran, can be considered in an independent category called "Non-Classic Persian Garden" or "Halting Garden". In the design of such gardens, it seems that function prevails form. Therefore, the functions of this garden, its physical characteristics, and its distinctions from classic gardens are to be studied.

Khal‘at-pushan Garden is one of the most important gardens of Qajar Tabriz. In this period, when Tabriz was the seat of the grand Qajar prince, the garden was so important that a royal ceremony named Khal‘at-pushan was held there— a court ceremony for dressing a robe of honour. There was a vast pool in the garden, and the pavilion was located in the middle of it. Unfortunately, the pool, like almost all other elements of the garden, was demolished. The only remained architectural element is the pavilion, which is not under a good conservation circumstance.

The pattern of Persian garden, with more than two thousand years history, was neglected in the so-called “Transition Period” and replaced by European garden designs. Since this transition occurred gradually, we can find many types of such gardens in this period that makes a spectrum: from ones which were inspired by European gardens or affected only in their ornaments or furniture, to those that were European in their very nature. Raamsar garden-boulevard is a prominent case of such gardens, which includes examples of the spectrum in the last eight decades. Four periods can be recognized in the history of Raamsar garden-boulevard. In the first, in Pahlavi I period, the old hotel, casino building, and the boulevard were built. In the second period, in 1960's and 1970's, arable was transformed to fruit garden and a new hotel was built. In the third, they made some artificial organic-shaped canals, developed the airport and occupied the site environs by Golestān-e Honar 12, Summer 2008 7 many habitation projects. In the fourth period, since 1980, building projects next to the boulevard have been continued, the pedestrian lane paved by stone, and many park furniture, with undesirable designs, installed in the garden.

Bayāz-i Khwūshbū‘i (literally “The Sweet- Smelling Notebook”) is an unpublished Persian manuscript of early Shah Jahan period by an anonymous author from the Mughal court of India. The manuscript is an anthology containing what every Mughal gentleman should know. It has a chapter on garden, its and its pavilion design. The anonymous work is a fairly detailed description of the various parts of a garden and related buildings, complete with measurements and ideal proportions, each with an imperial or sub-imperial exemplar. Unlike the known Persian literature (for example, the Irshād al-zirā‘ah , dated 1515), the Bayāz-i Khwūshbū‘i concerns itself almost entirely with architecture, dimensions, and ratios. The second half of the document considers the number of gardeners, the ratio of gardeners to oxen, the number and type of wells, and the amount of money needed for a garden's upkeep.