Hasht Bihisht (architecture)

In architecture, a hasht-behesht (هشت‌بهشت, hašt-behešt), literally meaning "eight heavens" in Persian, is a type of floor plan consisting of a central hall surrounded by eight rooms,^[1] the earliest recognized example of which in Iranian architecture is traced to the time of the Persianate Timurid Empire. The term was used in Persian literature as a metaphorical image, and was later notably used in a poem by Indian poet Amir Khusrow, who gave the most comprehensible literary reconstruction of the model in his adaptation of an Iranian epic about Sasanian ruler Bahram V, as well as in other works by Ottoman poets Sehi Bey and Idris Bitlisi.^[1] The architectural form was adopted and used also in Ottoman and Mughal architectures.

The concept of hasht-behesht is linked to that of the Zoroastrian vahišta (Avestan for "best"; cognate with Middle Persian wahišt, New Persian behešt),^[1][2] a building decorated with precious stones that would represent the astrological concept of eight planets corresponding to eight heavens. It is closely related to Islamic eschatology, in which heaven is described as having eight gates and eight spaces, and is also observed in Christian symbolism in the concept of salvation.^[1] Similarly, the Chinese magic square, which was employed for numerous purposes, finds its way into Islamic mathematicians as "wafq". Ninefold schemes find particular resonance in the Indian mandalas, the cosmic maps of Hinduism and Buddhism.^[3]