jaipur presntaiton

7/21/2019 Jaipur Presntaiton

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INTROduction-

To begin with, it is one of themost famous cities in India.With a resident populationnow in excess of one and a half million, it isalso highly popular amongst both domestic and foreigntourists, who are attracted by its liing crafttraditions, its palaces and the regularly plannedwalled city at its core. !ounded in the earlyeighteenth century, it is pre-colonial in inception "designed su#ciently recently to ensure the readyaailability of ample source material, yet inaccordance with indigenous principles.

$aipur, now the capital of Ra%asthan,has experienced rapid and dramatic expansion, andcontributions to this process hae been made bysome of India&s leading modern architects,including '.(. )oshi and *harles *orrea. It isperhaps only the combination of all these factorsthat ma+es $aipur exceptional, and in none of thecircumstances described is it uniue thus at eachsuccessie stage of its history it can be used toexemplify much wider deelopments. It alsohappens to be a city with which both the authorshae en%oyed a familiarity, through regular isits,for oer twenty years.

T/ 010TR102 T/R/ RO3/0 '10I*1334 TOINTRO)5*/ (110T5 010TR1 TO6I* IN )5RIN

6R/0NT1TION 7

!ew salient elements that were consistently presentin de8nitions of +ingship and of cities up until theeighteenth century. The 8rst is niti shastra,or treatises on politics and statecraft. ere we haeused in particular the ancient classic of the genre,


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theArthashastra, composed during the 9auryanperiod 2fourth to third centuries '*7 and well+nown eer since, and " to gie a more contemporaryperspectie " the late deriatie wor+ the

Sukraniti. The second genre is vastu shastra,treatises that deal with architecture, planning andall other aspects of design. ere again our sourcesinclude two early classics, the Manasara and theMayamata, and also two later wor+s " theSamrangana Sutradhara, written in the eleenthcentury for Ra%a 'ho%a of )har, and 9andan&sRajavallabha, written in the 8fteenth century forRana :umbha of 9ewar " whose northernproenance and Ra%put patronage put them closer

to our case study of $aipur.


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;x; suare vastupurusha mandala,drawn according thede8nition of theRajavallabha.


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1 paradigmaticcapital city, drawnaccording to generalshastric de8nition.

diagram represents a concept it isnot a plan. It functions in the mind of the architectli+e a mnemonic " as a shorthand depiction of theideas outlined aboe and elaborated only erbally inthe texts " it is not a blueprint. !or a town to bebuilt in exact isual accordance with such a diagram

would only be possible if it were built in a singleprocess, on a preiously clear site. 1nd in realitythat neer occurs.The great ma%ority of towns andcities in India 2as elsewhere7 hae grownincrementally oer long periods, not from one preordainedplan.The opportunities for new, plannedcities are comparatiely rare, and een then no site


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is wholly without features.

The 0ite!ie miles to the south of 1mber lies an open plain

bounded on the north-west and the east by hills.This was the site that 0awai $ai 0ingh selected forhis new capital. /arlier Ra%put capitals wereestablished amongst hills " 1mber itself is a primeexample, with its naturally defended location in agorge " and the moe onto a plain is a measure of0awai $ai 0ingh&s boldness. The choice of site wasalso an indication of the changing conception ofthe capital, from a military retreat cut o< frominading forces to a trading centre open to goodcommunications. /en so, the change was notextreme and the hills a


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traersed the plain from east to west. This oneformed part of the road between the 9ughal citiesof 1gra and 1%mer, ma+ing proximity againdesirable, since to place the new city on an already

established communication line would help tosecure its economic success. 'ut in this case it wasan imperial road and could not be encroached upon.

The city therefore had to be contained within thenorthern end of the plain, to the north of this line.1t the far northern end of the plain a large marshyarea mar+ed the northernmost limit.1 further decisie natural feature is that theplain is not uite @at. 1 long and straight ridge runsacross the plain, parallel to the 1gra"1%mer road

and some distance to the north of it, again in aroughly west"east alignment 2the line in factdeiates A from the cardinal axes7. The area to thesouth of this ridge is een, while that to the northslopes gently downwards. The ridge is still plainlyisible on the ground today. In shastric terms thearrangement is ideal, as a decliity towards thenorth-east is considered the best possible +ind ofsite. In practical terms, the ridge too had to be

accommodated.!inally, in the hills to the east of the plain is asacred site +nown as >alta%i. This had been a retreatfor ascetics since the early sixteenth century and atthis time was the centre of the Ramanandis, a(aishnaite sect. 1lthough the new city was to berestricted to the plain, >alta%i was a crucial elementin the pre-existing sacred geography of the site.using the design concept'earing in mind the conceptual city or shastricparadigm, and the features of the chosen site, thelayout of the city of $aipur resoles itself. Thedesign process entails deeloping the site in thelight of the paradigm, and this calculation can readilybe reconstructed. !irst, there was the immutable


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*on%ectural reconstruction of the site for $aipur.

/stablishing the city&s axes on the site.


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)eeloping the site as a mandala.

1ccommodating the western and eastern

ad%ustments.

2133 T/0/ I91>/0 1R/ IN OR)/R..B '4 B OW !IN13

631N *19/ INTO '/IN> 7


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6lan of $aipur city,as built.

The pro8le of the hill also explains why the

western sectors or suares of the city are slightlywider than the others. To maximiCe the protectiona


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number of further adantages. !irst, it plugged thegap between the city and the eastern hills, thusagain closing access to any inading force and especiallyprotecting the route towards 1mber. 0econd,

it allowed the main east"west road within the cityto extend towards >alta, thus lin+ing the sacred siteinto the city scheme. Third, it maximiCed the southernfront of the city 2that is, the front isible alongthe imperial road7, thus enhancing the city&sapparent scale and prestige. !ourth, and perhapsmost importantly, it placed the gate on the 0anganerroad 2now +nown as 0anganeri >ate7 at the centrepoint of the southern wall. The gate protects themain north"south thoroughfare, the primary axis of

moement within the city.

1 comparison of the shastric diagram with theeoled plan 2illus. BD and EF7 shows clearly boththe continuity of the concept and the modi8cations

reuired by the exigencies of the site.

What matters is sustainingthe concept " the mental model " and the plan of

$aipur achiees this. When wal+ing through thestreets of $aipur one is acutely and constantlyaware of its layout, of the broad straight streetsarranged on a grid with the palace centrally placedand it is this mental experience " not the isualinspection of a modern map 2illus. EB7 " that ma+esus recogniCe the mandala. To superimpose theshastric mandala bac+ oer a map of $aipur and tomar+ the discrepancies would be to the miss thepoint. The city as built is a successful rendering of

the mandala concept because it loo+s and feels li+ea mandala when one is in it.

The streets, asdescribed, are not aligned with the points of thecompass, but run along an axis of BGA toaccommodate the ridge. oweer, this is not


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obserable on the ground.

The streetruns to the east because it points to 0urya. Thusthe orientation of the city is woen at once into

the sacred geography and the natural topographyof the site.

0ome misconceptions about theplan of %aipur

The recognition of the shastric basis of theplanning of $aipur establishes an important pointabout vastu vidya in general " namely that it is amental, not a graphic, tool. The test, faoured bysome scholars, of drawing mandalas oer ameasured plan of a building or a city " whetherintended to demonstrate correspondence ordiscrepancy " is fundamentally mista+en. In the8rst place, it is unhistorical. Ino+ing measuredscale drawings as a test introduces a comparisonthat the architects themseles could not haemade, since the use of such drawings was not a

usual part of architectural practice in pre-colonialIndia. In post-Renaissance Western architecturalhistory, it is reasonable to compare idealconceptions with measured drawings that weourseles hae prepared, because we can fairlyassume some correspondence between ourdrawings and those that were made at the time= weassume that they too isualiCed and depicted theirdesigns in such terms. In the Indian historical con-textthis assumption would be false. There,typically, the ideal was realiCed in built form onthe site 2in the manner %ust described in the case of

$aipur7 without the intermediary stage of the scaledrawing. This explains why, although somecontemporary maps and other depictions of $aipurhae suried, no scale design drawings exist.What matters is a correspondence not between ashastric diagram and a measured plan, but betweena shastric paradigm 2carried mentally7 and anexperience on the ground.


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1 third recurrent confusion amongst writers on$aipur&s plan relates to the identi8cation of theprecise shastric model that was adopted from themany aailable. 0ome of those writers who agreethat there was such a model ta+e theprastara as the+ey. This idea was 8rst adanced by /. '. aell,

who thought he detected similarities between the

plan of $aipur and theprastara as drawn by RamRaC in an early study of the Manasara, and theidenti8cation has been accepted by others. It is notsustainable. Ram RaC&s drawing was itselfcon%ectural and bears little relation to the formdescribed by the text he purported to illustrate2illus. 7. 1nd $aipur itself bears little relationeither to his drawing or to the textual original= theonly common element is the grid, which is ofcourse common to all of the town plan types

o


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the city encouraged also a rapid construction,and this was facilitated by the use of rubble as theprincipal building material. The main wards of thecity had been laid out by , within seen years ofthe foundation. In the preious year the city hadbeen o#cially recogniCed as the state capital by the

9ughal /mperor 9uhammad 0hah. 1 document+nown as the Sivaha Hazuri is a register of the dailyactiities of the 9ahara%a the entry for *haitra(adi , 2!ebruary 7 describes 0awai $ai0ingh playing oli throughout the central parts ofthe city. 1 map painted on cloth also made atabout this time is eidently a progress report on theconstruction it shows the location of the palace andthe four central, southern and western wards 2illus.7. It would be a mista+e to infer from this mapthat originally only four wards were intended= it isplainly a record of wor+ completed rather than a

design plan.We may infer rather that the city wasbuilt from west to east and from south to north, inaccordance with shastric procedure, and in responseto the main constraints of the site, namely the hillto the west, the road to the south and the slopetowards the north. Two other eighteenth-centurymaps in the palace collection show the city morecomplete, but the northern side 2and especially thenorth-east corner7, less fully resoled than the restof the city, again suggesting that this area was builtlast 2illus. 7. Originally the larger siCe of the Tal:atora hampered the deelopment of the northern

Cones, and indeed the grid of minor streets wasneer properly established in the north-east.

The main s+eletal components of the city, builtswiftly under royal patronage, include the city walland its gates, the main streets diiding the area intowards 2chowkri7 and crossroads 2chaupar7, the palacecompound wall in the centre, the faHades of theshops on the main baCaars, and the principaltemples. 1ll of these components wor+ together inan integrated system, but we shall consider each ofthem indiidually, starting from the outer boundary.

The wall and gatesThe eentual outer form de8ned by the city wall isas shown in illus. . The ariation between thisand the originating mandala paradigm, as alreadyexplained, should not be seen as an abandonment oralteration of the shastric base, but as its


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implementation. !or example, the extension of thecity eastwards to meet the >alta hills and so tobloc+ the route to the north, is itself a ful8lment ofthe reiterated shastric idea that a city must beespecially impregnable on its northern and easternsides 2illus. 7.

The wall is on aerage m high and m thic+.It is pierced by a total of seen gates, a shastricmodel number. !or a temple composed ofconcentric Cones, the ideal has seen enclosures,each with a gate on each side, thus producing fourseries of seen gates. This is the ideal realiCed at0rirangam, and freuently depicted in paintings ofpalaces of the gods 2including one exhibited in the

$aipur palace7. In the case of a city, the number isinterpreted as gates around the periphery of theouter enclosure.

The

?progress report& plan, painted on cloth.

The *hand 6ol on the west side and the 0ura%

6ol on the east mar+ the ends of the main west"eastroute through the city, about +m in length. On thenorth side, protecting the road to 1mber, is the gatenow called $orawar 0ingh 6ol, formerly named)hru 6ol after the pole star. 1t interals along thesouthern front are four gates. !rom west to east theseare the 1%meri >ate 2commanding the westerly roadtowards 1%mer7, the Naya 6ol 2or New >ate7, the0anganeri >ate 2goerning the route southwards


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towards that ma%or town illus. 7 and the >hat)arwaCa 2lin+ing the city with the easterly roadtowards >hoomi >hat, the pass through the easternhills7. This southern side, the ulnerable face that thecity presented to the outer world, was originallyfurther protected by a ditch immediately in front of

the wall this was substantially 8lled in during theBDGFs 2though one part near the Naya 6ol remains7.1ll of the gates were closed at night, a practicecontinued until BDJ

The chow+risThe principal streets of the city de8ne the gridof the mandala and diide the city into chowkris2wards7. The names by which these are +nownmay not be original but they do indicate some

original features 2illus. 7. The south-west wardand the eastern extension, for example, are+nown respectiely as Top+hana )esh and

Top+hana aCuri 2meaning ?arms store &7,implying that they were conceied as the city&scorner bastions. The south-east ward is >hat)arwaCa, named after its gate.

The central ward in front of the palace isdiided into two hales= 9odi to the west and(isheshar%i to the east 2the latter is named aftera temple added in the nineteenth century7. Thediider between these two hales is a road, *haura

Rasta, eual in width to the other main roads, and anaddition to the grid. This road lin+s the Tripolia>ate, the southern entrance to the palace compound,with the city wall and the Naya 6ol, and so it emphasiCesthe axis of the city and the centrality of thepalace, and it proides access to the palace from thesouth. It has been suggested that this road and theNaya 6ol were afterthoughts, added in the nineteenthcentury. 1lthough seemingly supported by thegate&s name, this idea is mista+en= both the road andthe gate feature prominently in eighteenth-centuryrepresentations of the city and the road&s functions

with respect to axis and access also plainly meet originalreuirements. The confusion arises because theNaya 6ol was later rebuilt 2and so renamed7 and it isalso true that some prominent buildings now lining*haura Rasta are later structures.

The central Cone of the city has three wards.!rom west to east these are= 6urani 'asti 2the ?olduarter&, perhaps named in remembrance of its haing


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been the 8rst constructed7, the palace sarahad in

0+etch-plan of

$aipur indicating the wards and gates.

the centre, and Ramchandra%i 2named after anineteenth-century temple see *hapter Three7. Inthe northern Cone, the western ward is obliteratedby the hill the central ward behind the palace is8lled by the Tal :atora and the eastern side has thechowkri +nown as >angapol, after a minor gate inthe north-east corner of the city.

mohallas$ust as the main roads of the grid separate thewards, so smaller grids of narrower roads subdiidethem further. 0ome sources suggest that the mainroads are all precisely feet 2c. m7 wide, thesecondary roads exactly half that 8gure, and thetertiary roads a uarter width. /idently some suchsystem was intended, although as 1. :. Roy haspointed out it was not executed with mathematicalprecision. The main streets are all around BFF feet


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2c. EEm7 wide.

This diision of the city into wards and theirsubdiision into sub-wards, by di


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centrally regulated by (idyadhar.

temples as city structure1n aspect of the city&s design not widely noted is

the degree to which it is structured by some of theprominent temples built at the time of foundation.9ention has already been made of the 0urya templeat >alta 2illus. 7, built on a pea+ of the easternhills in line with the ridge carrying the city&s mainwest"east street, and which thus helps to loc+ thecity into the landscape. This temple was completedin BKE The dedication to 0urya relates to the9ahara%a&s mythical descent from the 0un, throughthe god"+ing Rama. 1n annual eent celebratingthis descent lin+ed the 0urya temple to the city bothritually and spatially. /ach year at the spring

festial, (asant 6anchami, the image of 0urya wasta+en out of the temple and carried through the cityin a chariot attended by the 9ahara%a and his nobels.


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0+etch-planshowing therelationship of thepalace to the principaloriginal temples.

The temple in the western suare is the Rama9andir, dedicated to the god"+ing and his consort0ita 2illus. 7. The image chamber faces eastwards,towards the palace and >alta%i, that is, towards the9ahara%a and their common ancestor 0urya. Thetemple in the eastern suare is dedicated to (ishnuas 3a+shmi Narayan, the consort of the goddess ofwealth. The image chamber faces west, towards thepalace and to $ohari 'aCaar, the mar+et of thewealthy traders. Thus is declared the presence atthe heart of the city of the god (ishnu, with bothregal and mercantile associations.

jaipur presntaiton

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