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Rulers and Buildings

Rulers and Buildings > Ask Alfie

cee
Hi
What is a Chahar Bagh?
user
cee
Under the Mughals, architecture became more complex.
1. Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, and especially Shah Jahan were personally interested in literature, art and architecture. 2. In his autobiography, Babur described his interest in planning and laying out formal gardens, placed within rectangular walled enclosures and divided into four quarters by artificial channels. These gardens were called chahar bagh, four gardens, because of their symmetrical division into quarters. 3. Beginning with Akbar, some of the most beautiful chahar baghs were constructed by Jahangir and Shah Jahan in Kashmir, Agra and Delhi. 4. This is also seen in a 1590 painting of Babur supervising workers laying out a chahar bagh in Kabul. The intersecting channels of the painting on the path create the characteristic chahar bagh design.
cee
Some of the learners also asked:
How do we know that Babur was interested in planning formal gardens?
speak