Verinag garden, Kashmir

Verinag, a halt on the road into Kashmir at the foot of the Banihal Pass and an ancient place of worship some 75 km south-east of Srinagar, holds one of Jahangir's gardens, its plan dated 1609. ¹

The spring rises in a deep, clear octagonal pool stocked with large carp, whose ancestors are said to have had gold rings put in their noses by Jahangir. A colonnaded building encloses the pool, one side of it a palace bridging the channel that leaves it; the stone-edged canal runs straight for nearly 300 metres between two great chenar trees before dropping into a stream reputed to be the source of the Jhelum. Brookes finds its plain directness moving and a foretaste of the lake gardens. ^{1 2}