Editing Architecture of India (section)

==Landscape architecture==
{{Further|Mughal gardens}}
[[File:GreatMughalsTM (complete).svg|thumb|Taj Mahal Gardens plan|307x307px]]
[[File:Bamboo garden (Venuvana) at Rajagriha, the visit of Bimbisara.jpg|left|thumb|[[Bimbisara]] visiting a bamboo garden in [[Rajgir|Rajagriha]]]]

There is less archaeological evidence of early gardens elsewhere in India but the ancient Hindu sacred books give a remarkably detailed account of gardens in Ancient India.

During Mauryan Era, palaces took a central role and with it came the gardens. The Hindu scriptures (shastras) set down a code for the orientation and organization of buildings in relation to compass points, hills, water and plants. No physical form survived but rock carvings like in Ajanta Caves or in Stupas shows an existence of airy structures with timber columns. Those illustrations show vegetation alongside the platform and columns. Emperor Ashoka's inscriptions mention the establishment of botanical gardens for planting medicinal herbs, plants, and trees. They contained pools of water, were laid in grid patterns, and normally had ''[[Chhatri|chattri]]'' pavilions with them.

Hindu and Buddhist temple sites, from ancient times, have emphasized on 'Sacred Grooves' or medical gardens. Hindu and Buddhist Temples like in [[Mahabodhi Temple|Mahabodhi]] and Chinese Buddhist pilgrim [[Xuanzang]] mentions accounts of [[Nalanda]] where "azure pool winds around the monasteries, adorned with the full-blown cups of the blue lotus; the dazzling red flowers of the lovely kanaka hang here and there, and outside groves of mango trees offer the inhabitants their dense and protective shade."

[[Manasollasa]], a twelfth century text giving details on garden design, asserts that it should include rocks and raised mounds of summits, manicured with plants and trees of diverse varieties, artificial ponds, and flowing brooks. It describes the arrangement, the soils, the seeds, the distance between types of plants and trees, the methods of preparing manure, proper fertilizing and maintaining the garden, which plants and trees are best planted first, when to plant others, watering, signs of overwatering and underwatering, weeds, means of protecting the garden, and other details.

[[File:WLM@J&K-Pari Mahal.jpg|thumb|[[Pari Mahal]]]]
Early Islamic dynasties, like of Delhi Sultanates, never showed interests on gardens with an exception of [[Lodi dynasty|Lodhi Dynasty]]. Mughals along with the Hindu Rajputs ushered a new era of Garden architecture. Concepts like ''Charbagh'' (four gardens) came from Persia. In the Charbagh at the Taj Mahal, each of the four parts contains sixteen flower beds.

Fountain and running water was a key feature of Mughal garden design. Water-lifting devices like geared [[Sakia|Persian wheels]] (''saqiya)'' were used for irrigation and to feed the water-courses at [[Humayun's Tomb]] in Delhi, [[Akbar's tomb|Akbar's Gardens]] in Sikandra and Fatehpur Sikhri, the Lotus Garden of Babur at Dholpur and the [[Shalimar Bagh, Srinagar|Shalimar Bagh]] in Srinagar.

Royal canals were built from rivers to channel water to Delhi and Fatehpur Sikhri. The fountains and water-chutes of Mughal gardens represented the resurrection and regrowth of life, as well as to represent the cool, mountainous streams of Central Asia and Afghanistan that Babur was famously fond of.
<gallery widths="140" heights="180" class="center">
File:Nishat Bagh (14362717638).jpg|[[Nishat Bagh|Nishat Bagh, Srinagar]]
File:Glasshouse and fountain at lalbagh.jpg|[[Lal Bagh]], Bengaluru
File:View of the Mughal Garden of Rashtrapati Bhavan in March 1962.jpg|View of the Mughal Garden [Now Amrit udhyaan] of Rashtrapati Bhavan
File:Waterfall at Rock Garden, Chandigarh.jpg|Waterfall at [[Rock Garden, Chandigarh]]
File:Char Bagh Garden.jpg|Char Bagh Garden, Rajasthan
File:Athpula aka Khairpur ka Pul, Lodi Gardens, New Delhi.jpg|The ''Athpula'' (eight piers) bridge in [[Lodi Gardens|Lodi gardens]]
</gallery>