The city in early India: Perspectives from texts

Studies in History

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 181-208

  Chattopadhyaya, B D ^a  

^a JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY   (India)

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EID: 61149431926     PISSN: 02576430     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/025764309701300201     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. A.K. Ramanujan, ‘Toward an anthology of city images’, in Richard G. Fox, ed., Urban India: Society, Space and Image, Monograph and Occasional Papers Series, Duke University, Monograph No. 10.
2. For early Indian cities, as known from archaeology, the following works may be consulted: A. Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, reprinted, Delhi, 1990;
3. R.S. Sharma, Urban Decay in India: c. 300–c. 1000, Delhi, 1987;
4. Dilip K. Chakrabarti, The Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities, Delhi, 1995;
5. F.R. Allchin, ed., The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States, Cambridge, 1995.
6. Early inscriptions refer to these two categories of space and population; see Hathigumpha inscription of Khāravela, line seven; D.C. Sircar, Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilization, Vol. I, Second edition, Calcutta, 1965, p. 215.
7. For discussions on various units of settlement, see Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, chapter 3;
8. N. Wagle, Society at the Time of the Buddha, Bombay, 1966, chapter 2.
9. T.W. and C.A.F. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha: Translated from the Pali of the Digna Nikaya, Part 3, London, 1921, pp. 72–73.
10. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 2, 4th edition, London, 1959, p. 147, 92.
11. The text and translation of the Arthaśāstra, generally followed in this essay, are those of R.P. Kangle, The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, Parts 1 and 2, reprinted, Delhi, 1992.
12. The idea of the necessity of constructing border cities as fortifications is present in early Buddhist texts as well. The Mahāparinibbāna-sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya refers to the king's border city (rañño paccantimaṃ nagaram) in the following words: ‘Strong in its foundations, strong in its ramparts and towers, and with only one gate; and the king might have a watchman there … to stop all strangers and admit only men well-known,’ Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 2, p. 88;
13. R.C. Childers, The Mahaparinibbana-sutta of the Suttapitaka (The Pali Text), London, 1878, p. 9.
14. I.B. Horner, Milinda's Questions (Translated from the Pali), Part I, London, 1964, pp. 1–3.
15. It has been suggested that the Milinda Pañha is a collection, and the original, much shorter Milinda may have been composed between 100 b.c. and a.d. 200; Oskar von Hinüber, A Handbook of Pali Literature, Berlin, New York, 1996, p. 85.
16. Horner, Milinda's Questions.
17. An attempt has been made by L.N. Rangarajan to reconstruct the spatial structure of the fortified city. See Kauṭilya: The Arthaśāstra, edited, rearranged, translated and introduced by L.N. Rangarajan, New Delhi, 1992, pp. 191–92.
18. This schematic plan of the fortified city is reproduced in Allchin, ed., The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia, p. 227. However, I find it difficult to accept Rangarajan's reconstruction because of the following reasons: (i) Kauṭilya's residential zone alone cannot correspond to the entire area of the fortified settlement; Kauṭilya refers to another segment as Vāstucchidra; (ii) in locating the different social groups in his map, Rangarajan uses only four cardinal directions, completely ignoring Kauṭilya's clear use of various segments of the cardinal directions; (iii) Rangarajan includes four dvāras with individual names mentioned in line nineteen separately among twelve dvāras of line two without any clear indication from the Arthaśāstra, and names four dvāras again without any clear hint from the text as to how the gates are to be named; (iv) Rangarajan completely ignores the fact that there is a hierarchy of space allocation in terms of distancing different segments with reference to the royal enclosure; (v) Rangarajan's dvāras in Figure 14 (‘The City and Environs’) on p. 191 are different from those in his schematic plan of the fortified city. So his two reconstructions are mutually incompatible; (vi) Rangarajan's drawings do not show that the royal enclosure could open either only to the north or to the east.
19. Ramanujan. ‘Toward an anthology of city images’.
20. The Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal: An Epic of South India, translated with an Introduction and Postscript, by R. Parthasarathy, New York. 1993, p. 25, 46–48, 61–62.
21. These texts are: Ubhayābhisārikā, Dhūrta-viṭa-saṃvāda, Padmaprābhṛtaka and Pādatāḍitaka. For the texts and their translations I have generally followed Manomohan Ghosh. Glimpses of Sexual Life in Nanda-Maurya India (translation of the Caturbhānī together with a critical edition of text), Calcutta, 1975.
22. However, Ghosh's argument that these texts be dated to the Nanda–Maurya period cannot be accepted. For an excellent discussion on the Bhāṇas, their dating, and edition and translation of Pādatāḍitaka, see G.H. Schokker, The Pādatāḍitaka of Śyāmilaka, Part 1, The Hague, 1966;
23. G.H. Schokker & P.J. Worsley, The Pādatāḍitaka of Śyāmilaka, Part 2 (A translation with a complete word–index of the four ancient Sanskrit Bhāṇas by Schokker), Dordrecht, 1976.
24. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, p. 5, 110–18.
25. The name of the author in Schokker, The Pādatāditaka, is Śyāmilaka.
26. The Viṭa ‘is an educated man about town, who has squandered his money and who now lives upon his acting as an intermediary between the bon vivants and the courtesans. On account of his erudition and his familiarity with life in the quarter of the courtesans he is able to give an interesting picture of this society’, Schokker, The Pādatāḍitaka, Part 1, Preface, vii–viii.
27. Parthasarathy, The Cilappatikaram, p. 41, 46, 147–49.
28. Horner, Milinda's Questions.
29. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, p. 115.
30. Parthasarathy, The Cilappatikaram, pp. 138–39, 136.
31. Mentioned in David Smith, Ratnākara's Haravijaya: An Introduction to the Sanskrit Court Epic, New Delhi, 1975, pp. 29–30.
32. Kāmasūtra, IV.I.
33. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, pp. 5–6, 30.
34. Mālavikāgnimitram, I.16.1.
35. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, p. 46.
36. Kāmasūtra, 4.34; 4.35.
37. Parthasarathy, The Cilappatikaram, pp. 34, 40.
38. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, pp. 19–20.
39. In this connection see Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, pp. 53–56.
40. Kāmasūtra, 4.51, 4.50.
41. Smith, Ratnākara's Haravijaya, p. 15, fn. 6.
42. It appears that in literature cacophony was considered to be one of the essential ingredients of the citi-ness of the city. I cite three passages from three different texts, in order to stress the point that the city could not only be viewed differently from other spaces, but could be heard differently as well: (i) Buddha's reference to Kuśavatí in Mahāparinibbāna–suttānta: ‘Both by day and by night, Ānanda, the royal city Kuśavatī resounded with the ten cries, that is to say the noise of elephants, and the noise of horses, and the noise of chariots; the sounds of the drums, of the tabor, and of the lute; the sound of singing and the sounds of the cymbal and of the gong; and lastly, with the cry: “Eat, drink and be merry”.’ Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, pt. 2, p. 162. (ii) Viṭa's reference to Sārvabhaumanagara in Pādatāḍitaka: ‘How wonderful is its mingling of great noises …’,
43. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, p. 117. (iii) Silappadikāram with reference to Madurai:
44. Parthasarathy, The Cilappatikaram, pp. 136–37, 140.
45. E.P. Mathen, Budhasvāmin's Brhat–kathā–śloka–samgraha: A Literary study of an Ancient Indian Narrative, Leiden, 1973, p. 6.
46. Gautama Dharmasūtra, 16.45; G. Bühler, The Sacred Laws of the Āryas as taught in the School of Āpastamba, Gautama, Vasiṣṭha and Baudhāyana, Part I: Āpastamba and Gautama, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 2, Oxford, 1879.
47. Āpastamba Dharmasūtra, 1.3.9.4 and 1.11.32.21; Bühler, The Sacred Laws of the Aryas.
48. Ghosh, The City in Early Historical India, p. 53.
49. Gautama Dharmasūtra, 9.65;
50. Bühler, The Sacred Laws of the Aryas.
51. One may note that the Brahmanical attitude was not necessarily that of the mendicants, who also, perhaps, did not wish to live in the city proper. Buddha, when he visited a city, lived on its outskirts; note, however, the wistful look that Buddha gave to Vaiśālī which he visited sometime before his Mahāparinirvāna: ‘… returning from his alms–seeking he gazed at Vesāli with an elephant–look, and addressed the venerable Ānanda, and said: “This will be the last time, Ānanda, that the Tathāgata will behold Vesāli.”’ Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 3, p. 130.
52. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, p. 108, 110, 113, 161.
53. This is how Sārvabhauma-nagara is also described in the Pādatāḍitaka; Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, pp. 101, 143.
54. Note the declaration by the Viṭa in Dhūrta-Viṭa-Saṃvāda: ‘If such words will be spoken by any other woman also, on hearing all this, I shall give up the profession of a Vita and become a peer of a śrotriya’. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, p. 54.
55. See R.S. Sharma, Urban Decay in India, in particular.
56. An important study on early Indian city, which combines literary and archaeological sources is by D. Schlingloff, Die Altindische Stadt, Wiesbaden, 1969. I am grateful to Professor B. Kölver for explaining the contents of this publication to me.
57. Ghosh, Glimpses of Sexual Life, text, p. 78.
58. See B.D. Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India, Delhi, 1994, chapters 6 and 7;
59. B.D. Chattopadhyaya, ‘Urban centres in Early Bengal’, Pratna-Samiksha, Nos 2 & 3, Calcutta, 1993–94, pp. 169–92.
60. See, for list and nature of Vāstu–śāstra texts, D.N. Shukla, Vāstu-Śāstra, Vol. I, Hindu Science of Architecture, Delhi, 1995;
61. for the contents of a text see the translation of Mānasāra in P.K. Acharya, Architecture of Mānasāra, Translated from original Sanskrit (Mānasāra series, Vol. IV), Delhi, 1980, pp. 93–98.