Persian gardens

Persian Garden (Persian: باغ پارسی Bāgh-e Parsi), also called Iranian Garden (Persian: باغ ایرانی Bāgh-e Irani), is a style of garden emerged in Persia (Iran) in the early 4000 BCE. It had a great influence from Andalusia to India and beyond. The gardens of the Alhambra show the influence of Persian garden philosophy and style in a Moorish palace scale, from the era of Al-Andalus in Spain. The Humayun's Tomb and Taj Mahal have some of the largest Persian gardens in the world, from the era of the Mughal Empire in India.

Concept and etymology

From the time of the Achaemenid Dynasty the idea of an earthly paradise spread through Persian literature and example to other cultures, both the Hellenistic gardens of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies in Alexandria. The Avestan word pairidaēza-, Old Persian *paridaida-,Median *paridaiza- (walled-around, i.e., a walled garden), was borrowed into Ancient Greek: παράδεισος parádeisos, then rendered into the Latin paradīsus, and from there entered into European languages, e.g., French paradis, German Paradies, and English paradise. The word entered Semitic languages as well: Akkadian pardesu, Hebrew pardes, and Arabic firdaws.