Landscape Designing

LANDSCAPE DESIGNING FRMT 325 Cr. Hr. 3(1+2)

Lesson 02:History Of Landscape Gardening In India

Aryan’s Period

• The Aryans of the Vedic period were great lovers of trees and flowers.
• The first evidence of Asvatha tree, the Pipal (Ficus Religiosa) comes from a seal from Mohen-Jo-Daro, of the third millennium B.C.
• Another seal from Harappa of the same period depicts a weeping willow (Salix babylonica).
• The Lotus has been mentioned frequently in the Sanskrit scriptures of Vedic times.
• The epics of the Aryans, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, also mentioned about gardens, trees and flowers.
• Reference has been made about the beautiful gardens of the city Indraprastha in the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata.

• The Ramayana also narrates that the places had nice gardens with numerous flowers and shaddy groves and lakes were full of lotuses
• The Asokavana where Sita was held in captivity by Ravana was composed mostly of Asoka (Saraca indica) trees.
• In both Ramayana and Mahabharata , trees and creepers namely Ficus religiosa, Saraca indica, Michelia champaca, Terminalia arjuna, Butea monosperma, Mesua ferrea, Cassia fistula, Shorea robusta (Sal), Palmyra palm, Screwpine, Bignonia and Oleanderwere mentioned.
• The tree Kadamba as it was closely associated with the life of Lord Krishna appears to have been a very popular one during the period of Mahabharata.
• The Lotus was a popular flower and was regarded as a symbol of purity by both the Hindus and Buddhists.
• During the later Aryan period the Aryans developed some wishful thinking in the form of Kalpalavriksha, the wish – granting tree, the Kalpalata a similar creeper.
• One sculputure depicting such a tree dating back to the third century B.C. and now preserved in the Calcutta Museum was identified as the banyan tree.