The Persian phrase firdaus ber ruyi zamin ast in the title of this Mohatta Palace Museum exhibition on the arts of Kashmir, is associated with two of the Great Mughals, emperors Jahangir (1605-1627), and Shah Jahan (1627-1659). Kashmir’s extraordinary, almost unearthly beauty, enthralled Jahangir. As he abhorred the heat and dust of his capital, Agra, empress Nur Jahan and he often spent their summers in this luxuriant valley. In his memoir, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, he wrote:

“Kashmir is a garden of eternal spring…Its pleasant meads and enchanting cascades are beyond all description. There are running streams and fountains beyond count …The hills and plains are filled with blossoms…As far as the eye can see flowers of various hues are blooming, and in their midst streams are flowing… In the whole world there is no sight of such enchanting character. It is a piece of heaven, paradise on earth.”

His son and successor Shah Jahan preferred architecture to nature.

While his famed Taj Mahal overshadows everything else in Mughal architecture, he also has several other noble structures to his credit: the white marble palace complex in the Lal Qila and the Jama Masjid in Delhi, the Pearl Mosque in Agra, the Shah Jahan Mosque in Thatta, Sindh, and the Shalimar Bagh gardens in Lahore.

In the Red Fort stood his Peacock Throne. A unique achievement of the jeweller’s art, this fabulous gem-studded Takht-i-Taoos was described by the French diamond merchant Tavernier as “the richest and most superb throne which has ever been seen in the world.” And on a wall of his Diwan-i-Khas, the magnificent Hall of Private Audience, is inscribed:

Agar firdaus bar ru-yi zamin ast

Hamin ast, u hamin ast u hamin ast!

(If there be a Paradise on earth,

It is this, it is this, it is this!)

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 19th, 2017