"Waterworks lead the eye, the mind, and the heart, as well as the feet. The conveyance of water from its source to some elevated reservoir and from there to a network of pools, channels, and fountains establishes the aesthetic as well as the spatial order of the garden."1
A classic hydraulic pattern is "a set of perpendicular water channels dividing into quadrants and creating the chahar bagh." 2
"The progression of water from a decorative niche, down an inclined textured surface, into a stilling basin, and then through a sequence of shallow channels and pools lends sophistication and elegance to the simple chahar bagh form."3
The most important water feature at Humayun's Garden Tomb was the Yamuna River, which served as the eastern boundary of the garden and adds to the garden's paradise imagery.4 Both of these traits, among others, would have served as factors for choosing this location for the site of Humayun's Garden Tomb. The Mughals used the Yamuna River for transportation, recreation, and military reasons.5 Rivers, including the Yamuna, were used to facilitated construction, by creating a convenient way to transport materials, such as blocks of stone, to the site for the building of large monuments.6
1. J.L. Wescoat Jr., "Picturing an Early Mughal Garden," Asian Art 2, no. 4 (1989): 72.
2. ibid, 71.
3. ibid, 73.
4. S.A.A. Naqvi, Humayun's Tomb and Adjacent Buildings (Delhi: Government of India Press, 1947), 3
5. J.L. Wescoat Jr., "Early Water Systems in Mughal India," Environmental Design: Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Centre 2, (1985): 51.
6. Ratish Nanda, "The Area Around Humayun's Tomb," Heritage of the Mughal World (Munich: Prestel, 2015), 168.
