What is it about?
Mughal gardens have renowned water channels, pools, fountains, and irrigated plantings. These waterworks required enormous amounts of labor to build, operate, and maintain. Previous research has addressed their jointly aesthetic, functional, and spiritual qualities, but limited attention has been given to the labor involved. This article presents a conceptual framework and methods for assessing water-related work in Mughal gardens and landscapes drawing upon paintings, texts, and the built environment.
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Why is it important?
These topics have relevance for understanding the social and environmental history of Mughal gardens and landscapes and their relevance to the expanding field of cultural landscape heritage conservation. Workers continue to build, operate, and maintain waterworks for irrigated gardens and landscapes, even though their livelihoods are rarely highlighted as something to be conserved, valued and sustained. Instead, Mughal water heritage conservation has concentrated on the important goals of protecting extant historical structures, using scarce water resources efficiently, interpreting water symbolism, and understanding water experience. Research on water livelihoods complements these established fields of heritage conservation.
Perspectives
This study was prompted by seminar questions from colleagues in the Aga Khan Programs for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT about the social history of Mughal gardens, which has received less attention than other aspects of garden history. As cultural heritage conservation turns with renewed interest in Mughal gardens and landscapes, it should consider water-related work and livelihoods within the scope of conservation as living heritage to be recognized, sustained, and valued.
JAMES WESCOAT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Water and Work in Mughal Gardens and Landscapes, Journal of Material Cultures in the Muslim World, October 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/26666286-12340027.
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