This wall painting on Bundi’s Phool Mahal in Garh palace puzzled me when I first saw it. Seemed at first glance like a board game.
Closer study made me realise that it
seems to be of a garden based on a chahar bagh pattern. Figures of nobles can be seen sitting on the edges.

Paradise as described in the Quran will have rivers of milk and honey and gardens with trees in it. In fact, the word ‘jannat’ (or paradise) means a garden set with trees, surrounded by eight principal gates.
It’s on this pattern that we see Humayun ‘s tomb the first paradisiacal tomb in India built on the chahar or char bagh pattern.
The Char bagh is a quadrilateral garden divided into parts by water channels.
The first yo be built on this pattern is Pasargadae built for Cyrus (or Cambyses) the Great’s palace garden at Pasargadae c550 BC.
It was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great (559–530 BCE).
It is one of Iran’s #UNESCO World Heritage Sites some 90 km from the city of Shiraz.

#garden #charbagh #iran #bundi @rajasthan_tourism #phoolmahal #garhpalace #gardens #jannat

Gallery Text :

The Assyrian Empire fell before the combined onslaughts of Babylonians and Medes in 614 and 612 B.C. In the empire’s final days, Nabopolassar (r. 625–605 B.C.), who had been in Assyrian service, established a new dynasty with its capital in Babylon. During the reign of his son, Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 604–562 B.C.), the Neo-Babylonian empire reached its peak. This was largely attributable to Nebuchadnezzar’s ability as a statesman and general. He maintained friendly relations with the Medes in the east while vying successfully with Egypt for the control of trade on the eastern Mediterranean coast. He is well known as the biblical conqueror who deported the Jews to Babylon after the capture of Jerusalem.

During this period Babylon became the city of splendor described by Herodotus and the Old Testament Book of Daniel. Because stone is rare in southern Mesopotamia, molded glazed bricks were used for building and Babylon became a city of brilliant color. Relief figures in white, black, blue, red, and yellow decorated the city’s gates and buildings. 

The most important street in Babylon was the Processional Way, leading from the inner city through the Ishtar Gate to the Bit Akitu, or “House of the New Year’s Festival.” The Ishtar Gate, built by Nebuchadnezzar II, was a glazed-brick structure decorated with figures of bulls and dragons, symbols of the weather god Adad and of Marduk. North of the gate the roadway was lined with glazed figures of striding lions. This relief of a lion, the animal associated with Ishtar, goddess of love and war, served to protect the street; its repeated design served as a guide for the ritual processions from the city to the temple.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/322585