Ten gardens are mentioned as made:—the Shahr-ārā (Town-adorning) which when Shāh-i-jahān first visited Kābul in the 12th year of his reign (1048 AH.-1638 AD.) contained very fine plane-trees Bābur had planted, beautiful trees having magnificent trunks,[2854]—the Chār-bāgh,—the Bāgh-i-jalau-khāna,[2855]—the Aūrta-bāgh (Middle-garden),—the Ṣaurat-bāgh,—the Bāgh-i-mahtāb (Moonlight-garden),—the Bāgh-i-āhū-khāna (Garden-of-the-deer-house),—and three smaller ones. Round these gardens rough-cast walls were made (renewed?) by Jahāngīr (1016 AH.).
The above list does not specify the garden Bābur made and selected for his burial; this is described apart (l.c. p. 588) with details of its restoration and embellishment by Shāh-i-jahān the master-builder of his time, as follows:—
The burial-garden was 500 yards (gaz) long; its ground was in 15 terraces, 30 yards apart(?). On the 15th terrace is the tomb of Ruqaiya Sult̤ān Begam[2856]; as a small marble platform (chabūṭra) had been made near it by Jahāngīr’s command, Shāh-i-jahān ordered (both) to be enclosed by a marble screen three yards high.—Bābur’s tomb is on the 14th terrace. In accordance with his will, no building was erected over it, but Shāh-i-jahān built a small marble mosque on the terrace below.[2857] It was begun in the 17th year (of Shāh-i-jahān’s reign) and was finished in the 19th, after the conquest of Balkh and Badakhshān, at a cost of 30,000 rūpīs. It is admirably constructed.—From the 12th terrace running-water flows along the line (rasta) of the avenue;[2858] but its 12 water-falls, because not constructed with cemented stone, had crumbled away and their charm was lost; orders were given therefore to renew them entirely and lastingly, to make a small reservoir below each fall, and to finish with Kābul marble the edges of the channel and the waterfalls, and the borders of the reservoirs.—And on the 9th terrace there was to be a reservoir 11 x 11 yards, bordered with Kābul marble, and on the 10th terrace one 15 x 15, and at the entrance to the garden another 15 x 15, also with a marble border.—And there was to be a gateway adorned with gilded cupolas befitting that place, and beyond (pesh) the gateway a square station,[2859] one side of which should be the garden-wall and the other three filled with cells; that running-water should pass through the middle of it, so that the destitute and poor people who might gather there should eat their food in those cells, sheltered from the hardship of snow and rain.[2860]
FOOTNOTES
[1] From Atkinson’s Sketches in Afghanistan (I.O. Lib. & B.M.).
[2] See p. 710 (where for “Daniels” read Atkinson).
[3] See Gul-badan Begim’s Humayun-nama Index III, in loco.
[4] Cf. Cap. II, PROBLEMS OF THE MUTILATED BABUR-NAMA and Tarīkh-i-rashīdi, trs. p. 174.
[5] The suggestion, implied by my use of this word, that Babur may have definitely closed his autobiography (as Timur did under other circumstances) is due to the existence of a compelling cause viz. that he would be expectant of death as the price of Humayun’s restored life (p. 701).