Shalamar Bagh Lahore Episode 4

Location
The Shalamar Gardens are located near Baghbanpura along Grand Trunk Road some 5 kilometers northeast of Lahore's Walled City.
Background
The gardens provide a popular recreation spot for Lahore's residents
Lahore's Shalamar Gardens were built by the Mughal royal family primarily as a venue for them to entertain guests, though a large portion was open to the general public. The gardens' design was influenced by the older Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir that were built by Shah Jahan's father, Emperor Jahangir. Unlike the gardens in Kashmir which relied on naturally sloping landscapes, the waterworks in Lahore required extensive engineering to create artificial cascades and terraces.
The Shalamar Gardens were designed as a Persian-style Charbagh "Paradise garden" - a microcosm of an earthly utopia. Though the word Bagh is translated simply as "garden," bagh represents a harmonious existence between humans and nature, and represents a poetic connection between heaven and earth. All natural elements of the bagh are appreciated - including the sun, moon, and air. Muhammad Saleh Kamboh, historian to Shah Jahan, reported that the gardens of Kashmir inspired the design for the Shalamar Garden in Lahore,and that a wide variety of trees and flowers grew together in the garden.
The site was chosen for its stable water supply.The project was managed by Khalilullah Khan, a noble of Shah Jahan's court, in cooperation with and Mulla Alaul Maulk Tuni. Ali Mardan Khan was responsible for most of the construction, and had a 100-mile-long canal built to bring water from the foothills of Kashmir to the site.
The site of the Shalamar Gardens originally belonged to the Arain Mian Family Baghbanpura. Mian Muhammad Yusuf, then the head of the Arain Mian family, ceded the site of Ishaq Pura to the Emperor Shah Jahan in order for the gardens to be built. In return, Shah Jahan granted the Arain Mian family governance of the Shalamar Gardens, and the gardens remained under their custodianship for over 350 years.