Alexandra A. Kozlova

The article examines the role of Mughal gardens in Indian history from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. It considers their functions during the reigns of the Great and Late Mughals and their value as indicators of the growth and decline of the Mughal Empire. Establishing gardens was especially important to the first Mughal emperors as a way of marking territory. By the seventeenth century, this way of asserting authority was no longer needed, and the wives and daughters of emperors began to tend the gardens of the capital. The widespread decay of gardens in the eighteenth century reflected the disintegration of the empire. Two Delhi complexes are examined: Humayun’s tomb, the first Mughal dynastic building in South Asia and a model for Indian Muslim architecture, and Safdarjung’s tomb, often described as the last glimmer of Mughal architectural style in Delhi.

The article focuses on emotional and sensorial perception of Delhi by three foreigners (J. Matheson, G. Bulger, R. Minturn) who visited India in the second half of the XIXth century and authored informative travelogues.