MUGHAL GARDENS

Kashmir was a favorite of the Mughal emperors who visited it as often as they could. Cool and refreshing after the plain of North India where the business of governance kept them, they planted gardens with stepped terraces and flowing water courses. Cheshmashahi is the first Mughal garden you will pass after Nehru Park. Built at a height above the city, its view are as stupendous as its layout. The smallest of Srinagar's Mughal gardens, Cheshmashahi has only three terraces in addition to a natural spring of water enclosed in a stone pavilion. The next garden along the road that encircles the Dal is the Nishat, built by Empress Nur Jahan's brother Asaf Khan. The largest of the gardens, Nishat has several terraces, a central water course and the zabarwan hills. The third Mughal garden - the Shalimar was planted by Jehangir, the Mughal emperor whose love for Kashmir was legendary. Shaded by magnificent chinar trees, the Shalimar is a series of stone pavilions and flowing water with paint box bright flower beds.

HAZRATBAL MOSQUE

Across the Dal from Shalimar is the mosque of Hazratbal, the only one of its kind architecturally in Kashmir. Made of white marble with a dome and a minaret, Hazratbal is the repository of a single hair of the Prophet Mohammed, exhibited to the public on certain days of the year. The mosque was built in 1619 during the reign of the great Mughal Emperor Jehangir and shelters as a relic single thread of the Prophet Mohammed which Sayed Abdullah had brought here from Medina.

SHANKARACHARYA TEMPLE

Within Srinagar, on its highest hill is the Shankaracharya temple nearly one thousand feet above the city. It is devoted to lord Shiva. The site dates back to 2500 BC. The philosopher Shankaracharya stayed at this site when he visited Kashmir ten centuries ago to revive sanatan Dharma. Before this date, the temple was known as Gopadri, as an earlier edifice on the same site was built by king Gppaditya in the 16th century.