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Curzon nostalgia: landscaping historical monuments in India

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14601176.2012.719715

1943-2186

Eugenia W. Herbert,

Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. http://www.deccanchronicle.com/editorial/op-ed/tetchy-brits-and-their-tantrums-436. 2. http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/SilkStalkings/entry/not-just-your-garden-variety-concerns. 3. asi.nic.in/asi_monuments.asp. 4. India Today, 7 July 2003: archives.digitaltoday.in. 5. For example, the World Heritage Area Management Authority and ASI have forced the removal of local inhabitants from the bazaar at Hampi: ‘India's Hampi heritage site families face eviction from historic ruins’, The Observer, 27 May 2012. 6. http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/NM18/Protected-Mandu-monuments-in-ruins/Article1-160874.aspx. The site became further entangled in controversies over the role of a private company headed by an influential jeweler in leasing land adjoining the ruins: http://times of india.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/Government-to-decide-if-Jal-Mahal-land-verdict-to-be-challenged-CM-Ashok-Gehlot/articleshow/13282550.cms. 7. http://www.intach.org/about-mission.asp?linksabout1. 8. See for example INTACH's charge that the government of Odisha is not caring properly for the temples in the state: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubaneswar/Government-passes-the-buck-on-public-for-heritage-conservation/articleshow/12727813.cms. The Times of India recently carried an article about the disastrous condition of many of Andhra Pradesh's 550 protected monuments, claiming that many have ‘either become drunkards’ paradise … or converted into public urinals’: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Heritage-languishes-with-protector-chasing-gold/articleshow/12385634.cms. 9. A. Ghosh, Preface to Indian Archaeology — A Review 1953–54 (New Delhi, 1954). 10. Rajeev, Preface to ibid. 2000–2001 (New Delhi, 2006). 11. Review 1953–54, p. 36. 12. Review 1999–2000, p. 378. 13. Review 1976–77, p. 145; 1977–78, p. 154; 1981–82, p. 148; 1982–83, p. 152; 1984–85, p. 220. The 1977–78 issue notes that ‘sacred trees mentioned in Buddhist literature have been planted’ in the back sector at Sarnath, the site where the Buddha delivered his first sermon: p. 157. Even more enigmatic is a reference to ‘plants sacred to the Muslims’ in the gardens of Humayun's Tomb: 1980–81, p. 167. 14. Review 1986–87, p. 192; 1989–90, p. 213; cf. 1980–81, p. 167, listing the new plants introduced at the Siva Temple, Baijnath, in Himachal Pradesh. 15. Review 1986–87, p. 192; 1989–90, p. 213. 16. Review 1985–86, p. 211. 17. Ebba Koch, The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2006), pp. 24–25. 18. Eugenia W. Herbert, Flora's Empire: British Colonial Gardens in India (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 207–210. On Mughal gardens see also Koch; Constance Villiers-Stuart, Gardens of the Great Mughals (New Delhi: Cosmo, 1983 [1913]; and Sylvia Crowe, Sheila Hayward, Susan Jellicoe and Gordon Patterson, The Gardens of Mughal India (London: Thames & Hudson, 1972). 19. For fuller accounts of the Taj in later centuries, see Herbert, ch. 6, ‘The Taj and the Raj’, and Koch, ch. V, ‘Everybody's Taj’. 20. Quoted in Herbert, pp. 207–208. 21. The poet Edwin Arnold referred to it as ‘an orderly wilderness’. India Revisited (Boston: Roberts Bros., 1886), p. 211. 22. On the Taj and its gardens in the nineteenth century, see Herbert, ch. 6 passim, and Koch, p. 237ff. 23. Quoted in Herbert, p. 198. Fanny Parks had admired these same ‘fine old trees’ a half-century earlier and she too reckoned them already to be ‘very ancient’. From her tent pitched just in front of the great gateway, Parks was able to wander about the garden at all times of the day — once, ‘long after the usual hour, they allowed the fountains to play until I quitted the garden’. Begums, Thugs & White Mughals: The Journals of Fanny Parkes [sic], selected and introduced by William Dalrymple (London: Sickle Moon Books, 2002), p. 190. 24. Lord Curzon, British Government in India, 2 vols. (London: Cassell, 1925), Vol. II, pp. 136–137. Curzon capped his accomplishments with the passage in 1904 of the Ancient Monuments Bill, the model for subsequent legislation. By the end of his term, £120 000 had been spent on preservation and restoration of monuments, half of it in Agra and Fatehpur Sikri: David Dilks, Curzon in India (London: Hart-Davis, 1969), p. 246. 25. Curzon to Sir A. P. MacDonnell, 7 April 1900, Curzon Papers, Mss Eur F111/621, India Office Library, London. 26. Curzon quoted in The Earl of Ronaldshay, The Life of Lord Curzon, Being the Authorized Biography of George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, 2 vols (London: E. Benn, 1928), Vo. II, p. 211. 27. See Curzon Papers, Mss Eur F111/620, India Office Library, for correspondence on the subject. See also the obituary by D. G. Hogarth, ‘George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, 1859–1925’, Proceedings of the Royal Asiatic Society, 11, 1925, pp. 502–524. 28. It was Sleeman's wife who famously declared of the Taj: ‘I would die tomorrow to have such a tomb’. Quoted in Herbert, p. 222. 29. Col. J. A. Hodgson, ‘Memoir on the Illahee Guz, or Imperial Land Measure of Hindostan’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 7, 1843, pp. 42–63. 30. Curzon, speech to the Legislative Council on the Ancient Monuments Bill, 18 March 1904, reprinted in Thomas Raleigh, ed., Lord Curzon in India, Being a Selection from His Speeches as Viceroy and Governor-General of India (London: Macmillan, 1906), p. 198. 31. Curzon Papers, in Herbert, pp. 199–202, italics mine. A. P. Griessen, who worked closely with Curzon on the restoration of the garden, defends the departure from the Mughal plan, including the absence of fruit trees, by emphasizing the importance of keeping the sight lines to the mausoleum as open as possible. He also insisted that ‘eastern trees did not stand shaping out as fully as trees of Western climes’: Remarks on a talk given by Mrs Patrick Villiers-Stuart, 17 July 1931. Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 79/4104, 1931, p. 807. 32. 17 December 1903, Curzon Papers, Mss Eur F111/620, p. 139; Raleigh, p. 199. 33. Hogarth, p. 517. 34. Crowe, p. 45. Janice Leoshko notes the irony that, overgrown though they were, the Taj garden pre-Curzon probably more closely captured its original ambience than it did after his restorations: ‘Mausoleum for an Empress’, in Pradapaditya Pal, Janice Leoshko, Joseph M. Dye, III and Stephen Markel, eds, Romance of the Taj Mahal (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum/London: Thames & Hudson, 1989), p. 57. 35. Elizabeth B. Moynihan, ed., The Moonlight Garden (Washington, DC: The Smithsonian Institution/Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000). An aquatint by the Daniells shows a view of the Taj from across the river, with the ruins of one of the towers of the Moonlight Garden in the right-hand corner. 36. The Review (1996–97, p. 325) states apropos of the Mehtab Bagh: ‘A project report has been prepared in collaboration with the Agra Circle of the Survey. For [sic] complete revival of the garden in the Mehtab Bagh area on Charbagh pattern for which action has been initiated to select the flora for plantation besides preparing the layout of the garden, based on various historical records and plans’. The report for 1997–98 adds that ‘about twenty-five different species of the tress and shrubs were planted in ascending order from main axis [sic] on either side to enhance the visual effect:’ p. 363. 37. Curzon speech in support of the Ancient Monuments Bill, 18 March 1904, in Raleigh, p. 198. 38. See Herbert, pp. 216–217. 39. Quoted in James Wescoat and Joachim Wolschke-Buhlmahn, ‘Sources, Places, Representations and Prospects’ in James L. Wescoat and Joachim Wolschke-Buhlmahn, eds, Mughal Gardens (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996), p. 20. 40. Villiers-Stuart, p. 43. 41. Villiers-Stuart, pp. x, 32, 73ff, 199, 208, 213 and passim. 42. Sir Richard Temple, Bart., C. I. E., comments on Villiers-Stuart, ‘Indian Water Gardens’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, No. 3,203, Vol. LXII, 10 April 1914, p. 462. Sir Richard also chides Villiers-Stuart for her ‘severe’ views on modern British taste in Indian gardens. 43. Koch, pp. 100–101. 44. Letter to Lady Curzon in April 1905, quoted in Ronaldshay, p. 337. 45. Irfan Habib, ‘Notes on the Economic and Social Aspects of Mughal Gardens’, in James L. Wescoat and Joachim Wolschke-Buhlmahn, eds, Mughal Gardens (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996), pp. 132–133. 46. Unfortunately visitors are not allowed to take photographs, but detailed views are provided on the website: http://www.presidentofindia.nic.in/mughalGarden.html. 47. See especially Pradip Krishen, Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide (Delhi: Dorling Kindersley India, 2007) who includes large shrubs as well as trees. 48. Crowe, Hayward, Jellicoe and Patterson, caption p. 164. 49. Crowe, Hayward, Jellicoe and Patterson, p. 164. 50. Mita Rai, interview in the Daily Telegraph (London), 8 July 2001. 51. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/When-Curzon-rescued-Ahmedabads/icon/articleshow/13015110.cms. 52. See Herbert, ch. 9.