"The City and the Stars"

A one-day Seminar The City and the Stars: Cosmic Urban Geometries of India, was organised by IGNCA on April 14, 1994.

The theme of the Seminar, an entirely novel idea, had been suggested by Prof. John Mckim Malville, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, U.S.A. He has received international recognition for his work in the fields of solar astronomy, archaeoloastronomy and geophysics.

The Seminar explored the symbolic geometry which helped organise the integrated life of past cities. The synthesis of archaeology, astronomy and cultural geography, a multidimensional context of a Culture: macrocosm of the celestial realms; mesocosm of the natural landscape; and microcosm of human artifacts and architecture, rituals, texts, and folk traditions. The Seminar endeavoured to recreate as fully as possible, the symbolic environment of people and their times as evidenced by the structures of their cities.

The Seminar was inaugurated by Academic Director, Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan. A total of seven technical papers were presented. Prf. J.M. Valville, in his introductory paper Cosmic Urban Geometries – Cultural Astronomy: Methods and Goals, said that “one of the defining admonitions of post-processual archaeology is that in order to be able to understand the meaning of an object within the archaeological record, one needs to know its context as full as possible”. He stated that space may function as text in which informations are encoded. He emphasised that “our approach is to search for patterns within that space, pattern which may have been actively constructed or simply perceived in surrounding spaces”. The goal of the research was to understand the spatial environment in the time and space dimension. Presenting the next paper Urban Planning at Dholvira, District Kutch, Gujarat: A Harappan Township, Mr. R.S. Bisht, Director, Institute of Archaeology, New Delhi, described in detail the location, the exquisite planning, monumental structures, aesthetic architecture, the amazing water-management system, etc. of this remarkable, model Harappan city.

Mr. M.C. Joshi, Member Secretary, IGNCA, presented his paper on Application of Geometry in the Planning of an Ancient Settlement – Sisupalgarh: A Case Study. He said that features of planning at an archaeological site can be detected in the extant system of roads, alignment of structures, gates and fortification. A settlement had to be conceived and designed keeping in view the existing contours, watersheds and topography of an area selected for the purpose. Thus, knowledge of geometry and its application was a prerequisite for the planner of a settlement, besides familiarity with techniques of construction and capacity to handle the required building material. Citing some details about fortified urban sites as given in Kautilya’s Arthasastra, he gave in detail a case study of the ancient township of Sisupalgarh, near Bhubaneswar in Orissa, because of the relatively intact fortification of this site.

The next two papers related to the sacred geometry of the holy cities of Varanasi and Chitrakuta and were presented by Dr. Rana P.B. Singh of the Banaras Hindu University and Dr. D.P. Dubey of the Allahabad University. The two papers brought out clearly how the idea of ancient city had grown in the psychic purview of physico-cultural and economic processes in the dimension of space and time leading to form an ordered territorial organisation. In his paper Urban Planning in Vastusastra, Mr. Krishna Deva, an eminent archaeologist, showed how the architectural canons laid down in Kautilya’s Arthasastra were followed by describing in detail the layout of a few ancient cities of India. The last paper entitled Astronomy of Vijayanagara: Sacred Geography Confronts the Cosmos, was presented by Prof. Malville. He described the transformation of an area initially rich in local Hindu tradition but with only limited political or economic significance into one of the major cities of the world – an extraordinary story writ large in the stones of the ruined city.

The Seminar concluded with the analytical remarks of Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan who not only commented on the contents of the various papers presented but also emphasised the need for further interdisciplinary study of the subject.

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