Persian Inspired Paradise Gardens

Kashmir! “If there is pairidaeza on earth, this is it, this is it!”

Mogul Emperor Jahangir

 

The Persian definition of ‘paradise’ may surprise you. It means an enclosed area; an area set aside that has boundaries or walls around it. Now come to think of it, that makes sense. Paradise, heaven as it is spoken of in the holy books, the Bible, the Koran, is a place set aside that is circumscribed, guarded, a special place for the few chosen ones, the faithful.

I love the Biblical descriptions of paradise with its pearly gates, with its rivers that flow through it, its glories described in terms of a variety precious stones. “… the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels.”

But where did such ideas come from that ended up in Revelation, in the holy writs? And what was the need for high walls and gate keepers? The Glorious Koran speaks of paradise in many ways, including the idea of a special place in which there is a garden. “Surah VII, 40 Lo, they who deny Our revelations and scorn them, for them the gates of Paradise will not be opened nor will they enter the garden until the camel goeth through the needle’s eye. Thus do we requite the guilty.” Let’s see, that was first mentioned long, long before by a man named Mathew, a Jew, who wrote a gospel. “….It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven.” Math. 19: 24. Yes, people, even prophets do borrow sayings and ideas across cultures and time. I think that is called poetic license.

The authors’ of various of the now held-to-be sacred books, got their inspiration and ideas from the reality of their dry habitat and cultural settings, from the history of their own nations’ growth and other nations around them, from the writings of the wise ones who shared their greatest joys in Persian manuscripts with ‘hues of the green of trees and flowers set in gardens’ painted on the margins. Simply put, cultural borrowing was going on then as it goes on today. In a desert area like San Diego, Balboa Park is our garden; it’s paradise. People have always borrowed ideas from other people. Cultural borrowing of ‘heavenly ideas’ for some becomes the reality for others, with flowers and flowing water fountains in which paisas, annas, pennies and dimes are thrown. ‘Three coins in a fountain.’

Let me put this in a more sequential historical perspective. A long time ago, that is around 5th. Century B.C. Persia ruled over a vast kingdom. I mentioned this to our tour guide in Turkey two weeks ago and he had never heard of Persian domination over the area that is now Turkey. It included what today would be Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Palestine, Lebanon, Caucasia, some parts of Greece and even as far as what is now Pakistan. Along with their wonderful poetic language were many other of their cultural contributions to these areas of their vast kingdom, one of which was their gardens of ‘paradise’ enclosed by walls or boundaries. That was a new idea to many in those ancient days because gardens were usually utilitarian in nature where crops grew and the only boundaries were those necessary to demarcate property ownership, or fences to keep out goats. The Archmenid idea, that is of having an earthly paradise, became adopted by other peoples and cultures, and what a grand idea it was.

In a publication called, ‘Notes on Iran’, put on the web in May of 2008, as posted by ‘Barry’ there is a discussion about the gardens of paradise that Persia initiated. “The first writer to make reference to a Persian garden using the word ‘paradise’ was the Greek narrator Xenophon. The word appears in Avestan text only in the form of Pairadaeza.” For more than three thousand years, says Barry, quoted above, “…the Persian garden has been the focus of Iranian imagination, influencing the country’s art as well as literature. The lavish use of flowers in such gardens inspired the weaving of floral designs into what are known as garden-carpets.” All around the world garden traditions flourished and they influenced holy writings, literature, architecture and philosophy. Some gardens even hung around, the Hanging Gardens for instance.

Some of these gardens enclosed palaces, pleasure areas for people to stroll, some were private and some were opened to the public during Persian celebrations. Five centuries later this idea of a paradise, of course patterned on the earthly examples set by the Persians, was adopted by the writers of the Old Testament and later on even by the New Testament authors, including the man called St. John the Divine the author of Revelation. Heaven became paradise, or should I say, paradise became heaven. It does not take a great search to find the first references to the garden of paradise, Eden, in the Bible, and it sounded like a great place, surrounded by rivers, fruit trees, happy and un-aggressive animals, flowers, and even a talking serpent. (But that is another story.) Later, paradise as heaven was included in the Glorious Koran many times, with specific references to Eden. In the New Testament there are many statements about paradise and heaven, again, thank you Persia. Do you recognize the words spoken by Jesus on the cross? “This day shalt thou be in paradise with me.”

I just looked at a picture of the Taj Mahal in my bathroom and smiled to myself at the wonderful memories of strolling in that garden around that wonderful marble tomb which brought to mind two Shalimar Gardens, and a variety of other baghs I have visited in Pakistan and India. Kashmir boasts a host of places that are heavenly. The Royal Spring Garden, Chashme Shahi Garden which is dedicated to the Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan is a really lovely place, but it is but a sister garden to two others there in Kashmir, the Shalimar Gardens and Nishat Gardens that I visited, and Nasim Bagh where we put up our tent. The former, Cashme Shahi gets its name from the great female saint of Kashimir, Rupa Bhawani whose name included the family name Sahib, thus Cashme Sahibi. It has been many decades since I have wandered through these gardens, but they were in fact pairidaeza enclosures which would in English make one cry out, Wow! or in Urdu Wah! This is heavenly.

In the March 28, 2008, “Lahore Nama”, there is a wonderful piece that caught my mind and heart, because I used to wander with friend and family in a huge garden in Lahore. It begins, ‘I am homesick so I am posting an old piece on the Majestic Lawrence Gardens of Lahore. …. The writer of the “Lahore Nama” piece then ends this lovely article with words that I could not improve upon, for the emotion they bring or the memories they instill in me. “On a personal note, I have walked for years in the Lawrence Gardens–in solitude and with people. My fondest memories of Lahore are in one way or another linked to this splendid place. Often, my soul wanders there to experience the solace and reconnection that the human spirit yearns for.” (Emphasis mine) Whenever I have wanted to hear the sound of trees, in Lahore or in Landour, I have not been disappointed. Have you ever heard a whispering pine? The bulbuls also love gardens and seem to feature in so many Persian, Urdu and Hindustani poetry.

I am sure my readers will want to add their own gardens to the few I have mentioned. Paradise on earth is thus a mirrored hope for paradise ‘above’. The story goes that Adam and Eve were driven out so they could not partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but their descendents must have inherited the spiritual memories of that ‘first’ garden paradise with them. It may have been in their genes. After all the Ur of the Chaldeas was the home of Abraham, and we could conjecture that he must have known of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the stories of Eden. The Chaldeans settled in that area in about 900 B.C. and Ur is an ancient city of the Sumerian civilization, and thus the country of Abraham the father of the Hebrews, whose writings reflect their Persian Empire past. Ur’s ruins are still there today between Baghdad, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

So, the Hebrews are linked to Persia in a very real way through their spiritual father Abraham. Genesis stories and memories of home, of heavenly gardens, of how all of world began were part of the origin myths that were carried into the subsequent religious texts, including the Old Testament documents and became part of the writings in the world’s great mono-theistic religions. Ah, pairidaeza may be the whispering pine or quaking aspen reconnections that the human spirit longs for, asman, new and glorious heavenly green gardens with fruit trees and high walls made of jasper and twelve pearly gates for us, we, the desert folk from dry and thirsty lands of the Northwest Frontier Province of what was then India, now Pakistan, or parched southern California. Kew Gardens anyone?