India, May 3 -- Five centuries ago, on the plains of modern-day Haryana, Ibrahim Lodi of the Delhi Sultanate met the invading forces of Babur, who won and established the Mughal empire. The victor, it turned out, had a passion for gardens. Babur missed the cool climes and lush landscape of the Central Asia valley he grew up in. This prompted him to introduce the formal quadrilateral garden, the charbagh, intersected by flowing water channels, dotted with pavilions. Later Mughal rulers would build more such baghs across India. This is one of the ways in which the era shaped tastes and the evolution of a civilisational aesthetic. The subcontinent was, at this time, the beating heart of global trade. The refined taste and sustained patronage o...