Oriental town planning
There are many who seem to think that this love of form and beauty, so ingrained in the Mughal character, found its only outlet and was alone displayed in the royal gardens, forts, and palaces. This was hardly the case in India any more than it has been in Europe, though in every clime art flourishes most vigorously when to the inspirations of race and religion a personal stimulus is added. In Mughal times it was a pious act to plant avenues of trees to shade the wayfarers on the great high-roads. Gardens, and orchards too, were founded by private persons for the public benefit, very much After the manner of our old English foundations and almshouses. Town planning, about which there has been so much talk in England of recent years, was an art carried out on a grand scale by the great Emperors of India and Persia; and I doubt if New Delhi, even when finished, will contain anything so fine as the Chenar Bagh, 1350 yards long, 'down the centre of which ran a channel of water falling in terraces and collecting here and there in large shallow basins wherein fountains played; where on either side the channel was an avenue of trees and a paved footway for pedestrians, and beyond this again ran another avenue and a raised causeway, for horses and vehicles, against the flanking walls.' Such was the approach which Shah Abbas, the equally magnificent and art-loving contemporary of Shah Jahan, created for his beloved Persian capital, Ispahan.
