ABSTRACT
Cultural landscapes are an essential but often overlooked part of a heritage complex in South Asia. They are rarely the subject of listing and documentation in conservation projects, not only because of overemphasis on monuments but also lack of understanding and precise defi nition of the concept. Often perceived as just sites where historic structures are located, they need to be seen as landscapes of cultural signifi cance in and of themselves, where human communities have reshaped land and nature for purposes of living, working, and worshipping. The forms and structure of a landscape result from continuing negotiation between culture and nature, and the ongoing nature-culture dialogue is recorded over time in the landscape as in a palimpsest. A historic landscape is not one that is necessarily frozen in time, an impossible feat anyway, but that in which what is valued from the past can be interpreted for purposes of the present (Hays 2009).
