BĀGH-I SAMANZĀR-I NŪSHĀB: TRACING A LANDSCAPE IN THE ILLUSTRATED MASNAVĪ OF HUMĀY U HUMĀYŪN AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY

چکیده مقاله

Among literary texts, poetic narratives, because of their visual properties, yield valuable information as a source for the study of gardens in medieval Iran. This article examines the text of Khwaju Kirmani’s Humāy u Humāyūn and its earliest illustrations under the Jalayirids in Baghdad in the late fourteenth century to clarify the features of a particular garden, the bāgh-i Samanzār-i nūshāb, an enclosed space with a pavilion-like private mansion. To understand the scenes and landscape settings of this work, it is necessary to scrutinize and interpret Khwaju Kirmani’s verses as well as Junayd’s depictions in the manuscript of the Three Masnavīs dated 798 (1396) and now in the British Library. Elaborating on Khwaju’s narrative, Junayd created four paintings of the aforementioned garden. Comparing the scenes described in the text with what is depicted in the illustrations, we see that Junayd followed Khwaju’s narration but also introduced remarkable innovations, which he developed to create a new pictorial genre. Taken together, the paintings and the words of this manuscript describe a linear spatial structure defined by a loggia facing the garden and a pīshgāh, a pleasant open space in a garden court referred to as a chaman.