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2. House of Pleasure of the Kings of Kashmir |
F. Bernier
1. Shalimar in Kashmir
Bernier describes the Vale of Kashmir as full of rivers, green pleasure
gardens, isles all green in the midst of water, and, at the garden of the
king, great green turfs, and domes surrounded by water.
Lowes argues that these elements may have "risen up, blended and
transfigured, in the lovely image of the dream," when Coleridge was writing
Kubla Khan.
The garden of
Shalimar, renowned now as the name of a perfume, certainly seemed romantic,
and the imagery resembles that of Coleridge's Xanadu, where Kubla Khan
decreed a pleasure dome, which floated midway on the waves, near a fountain
flinging up a river, in a very green scene.
A few pages earlier, Bernier
describes the Taj Mahal as a "great and vast dome of white marble," (VIII,
193), which may have reinforced the image of a dome, surrounded by fountains
and shallow canals.
Text Out of all these mountains do issue innumerable sources and rivulets…All
these rivulets, descending from the mountains, make the plain and all those
hillocks so fair and fruitful, that one would take this whole kingdom for
some evergreen garden. The lake hath this peculiar, that 'tis full of little
isles, which are as many gardens of pleasure, that appear all
green in the
midst of the water….Beyond the lake, upon the side of the hills, there is
nothing but houses and gardens of pleasure…full of springs and rivulets.
VIII, 228-9
The most admirable of all these gardens is that of the king, which is called Chah-limar. From the lake, one enters into it by a great canal, border'd
with great green turfs….It leadeth to a great cabinet in the midst of the
garden, where begins another canal far more magnificent…and in the midst of
it there is a long row of jets of water….And this canal ends at another
great cabinet.
These cabinets, which are in a manner made like
domes, (are) situate in the
middle of canal, and encompassed with water. VIII, 233 |
 Other sources
William Bartram
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