Pinjore Gardens

Pinjore Gardens (also known as Pinjor Gardens or Yadavindra Gardens) is an example of the Mughal Gardens style. The garden is in the village of Pinjore lie 22 km from Chandigarh on the Ambala-Shimla road. The Gardens were designed by the Nawab Fidal Khan. He was an architect and foster brother to Aurangzeb. CM Villiers-Stuart was resident for the gardens for a time and included a description in her book on Gardens of the Great Mughals (1913). She wrote that "A quaint story still survives, how, when at length the work was finished, and Fadai came in state to spend his first summer there, bis enjoyment of the garden and its beauties was short-lived; for the Rajas quickly frightened him away In the districts round Pinjor, and in fact all along the foot of the Himalayas, occasional cases of goitre are to be seen; so from far and wide these poor people were collected by the wily Brahmins, and produced as the ordinary inhabitants of the place. The gardeners all suffered from goitre; every coolie had this dreadful complaint; even the countrywomen carrying up the big flat baskets of fruits and flowers to the zenana terraces were equally disfigured. The ladies of the harem naturally were horrified; it was bad enough to be brought into these wild outlandish jungles, without this new and added terror. For the poor coolie women, well instructed beforehand, had told how the air and water of Pinjor caused this disease, which no one who lived there long ever escaped. A panic reigned in the zenana; its inmates implored to be removed at once from such a danger; and finally, Fadai Khan had to give way, and take his ladies to some other place less threatening to their beauty. Had it been the terrible Emperor himself instead of his foster-brother, the cunning Rajas would have met their match. But Fadai Khan, thoroughly deceived, rarely came back to visit his lovely gardens, and the Rajas and their fields were left in peace for a time."

External links

* [http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden_tour/mughal-gardens-india/mughalgardens-india.htm Online text: "Gardens of the Great Mughals" by C.M. Villiers Stuart]
* [http://www.chandigarh.co.uk/excursions/pinjore-garden.html Pinjore Gardens]