Between Enduring Urban Models and Shifting Cultural Trajectories
Unravelling Narratives on Ayodhyā and Bengaluru
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.17.2015.17.02Abstract
Indian cities seem particularly prone to investigation through narrative both for the abundance of material about the origins and the development of urban centres from ancient to medieval times—which often contrasts with the relative scarceness of purely ‘historical’ data—and for the tendency to elaborate modern and contemporary “a posteriori narrative-myths” (Aravot 1995) through popular media such as cinema and television. Using methodological tools provided by research on narratives and analysing two case studies with reference to the cities of Ayodhyā and Bengaluru, the present paper investigates the processes and the dynamics by which narrations on cities are made to evolve. It builds on the conceptual frame provided by recent narratological scholarship, with a specific reference to the “increasing recognition of the ubiquity of narrative within any culture, in discursive practices as diverse as theology, historiography, economics, legal practice, political speech-making, everyday conversation and philosophy” (Rigney 1992: 263–264, italics in the original). Focusing on the ‘constructive’ aspect of narrative, seen as a discourse that intrinsically involves the active (and determinant) participation of the narrator, it argues that this perspective of analysis allows the researcher to interpret urban narratives eminently in political terms, or within relations of power—which also legitimizes the use of narrative materials for historical research. In broader terms, it contends that narration can give back structured information about the values and the practices which characterize a given society, and which are selectively communicated by the narrator(s); and that, in turn, this quality of ‘restoring’ structured information may shed more light on the inherent nature of narration itself and lead to further theorization both on its creative dynamics and its created artefacts. Practice of exploration of narration in a context of open communication with other disciplines may undoubtedly facilitate this process.
PlumX Metrics of this article
References
Akkerman, A. 2006. Femininity and masculinity in city-form: Philosophical urbanism as a history of consciousness. In: Human Studies, 29, 2: 229–56.
Aravot, I. 1995. Narrative-Myth and Urban Design. In: Journal of Architectural Education, Vol. 49, 2: 79–91.
Bairoch, P. 1985. De Jéricho à Mexico: Villes et économie dans l’histoire. Paris: Gallimard.
Bakker, H. 1986. Ayodhyā. Groningen: Egbert Forsten.
Barthes, R. 1981. Introduction à l’analyse structuale des récits. In: L’analyse structurale du recit, “Communication”, 8; Paris,1981 (1966): 1–27.
Bernbeck, R. and S. Pollock. 1996. Ayodhya, Archaeology, and Identity. In: Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, 1: S138–S142.
Bhatt, G. H. and U. P. Shah. (gen. eds.) 1960–75. The Valmiki Ramayana: Critically Edited for the Frst Time. 7 vols. Baroda: Oriental Institute.
Bloomfield, M. 1890. The Kauśika-sūtra of the Atharva-veda. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society, 14 (repr. 1972): i, iii, v–vii, ix–lxviii, 1–305, 307–373, 375–424.
Brockington, J. L. 1985. Righteous Rāma. The Evolution of an Epic. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Calvino, I. 1974. Invisible cities. Transl. Weaver William. Orlando: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Colaco, P. 2003. Peter Colaco’s Bangalore. A Century of Tales from City and Cantonment. Bangalore: Via Media Books.
Cowgill, G. L. 2004. Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives. In: Annual Review of Anthropology, 33: 525–549.
Das Gupta, S. and R. S. Basu. (eds.) 2012. Narratives from the Margins. Aspects of Adivasi History in India. New Delhi: Primus Books.
De, A. (ed.) 2008. Multiple City. Writings of Bangalore. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Eggeling, J. 1966. The Śatapatha-Brāhmaṅa, 5 vol. New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Fritz, J. M. and G. Michell. 1987. Interpreting the Plan of a Medieval Hindu Capital, Vijayanagara. In: World Archaeology, 19, 1: 105–129.
Gandhi, M. K. 1969. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 34, New Delhi: Government of India.
Genette, G. 1966. Figures I. Paris: Seuil.
Genette, G. 1969. Figures II. Paris: Seuil.
Genette, G. 1972. Figures III. Paris: Seuil.
Goldman, R. P. (gen. ed.) 1984–2009. The Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki. An Epic of Ancient India, 6 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Goldman, R. P. 1986. A City of the Heart: Epic Mathura and the Indian Imagination. In: Journal of the American Oriental Society, 106, 3: 471–483.
Hasan, F. 1970. Bangalore Through the Centuries, Bangalore: Historical Publications.
Hein, N. 1972. The Miracle Plays of Mathura. Yale: Yale University Press.
Holy Bible (The New King James Bible). 2011. Secunderabad: The Gideons International in India.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 2002. Tristes tropiques. Paris: Plon (repr. 2002).
Kapur, A. 1990. Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar. Calcutta: Seagull Books.
Low, S. M. 1996. The Anthropology of Cities: Imagining and Theorizing the City. In: Annual Review of Anthropology, 25: 383–409.
Lutringer, C. 2015. Representing Responsibility in Environmental Education: Insights From a Social Awareness Campaign in Bengaluru, India. In: Rivista degli Studi Orientali, Supplemento 2: 269–285.
Mathur, A. and D. da Cunha. 2008. From Garden City to Tota?. In: A. De (ed.). Multiple City. Writings of Bangalore. New Delhi: Penguin Books: 22–31.
Milanetti, G. 2007. Rāma arava, Rāvaṇa no: note per una storia politica dell’agricoltura stanziale in India, dal Rāma-rājya al Raj. In: Rivista degli Studi Orientali, 88, 3–4: 343–362.
Milanetti, G. 2012a. La metropoli indiana: modelli, narrazioni, rappresentazioni. In: R. Antonelli and M. I. Macioti (eds.). Metamorfosi. La cultura della metropoli. Roma: Viella: 383–430.
Milanetti, G. 2012b. Tulsidas and the Conversion of the Tribals. Notes for a New Reading of the Ramcharitmanas. In: S. Das Gupta and R. S. Basu (eds.). Narratives from the Margins. Aspects of Adivasi History in India. New Delhi: Primus Books: 17–47.
Nair, J. 2002. Past Perfect: Architecture and Public Life in Bangalore. In: The Journal of Asian Studies, 61, 4: 1205–1236.
Oswell, D. 2006. Culture and Society. An Introduction to Cultural Studies. London: Sage Publications.
Pani, N. 2010. Imaginations of Bengaluru. In: N. Pani, S. Radhakrishna and K. G. Bhat, (eds.) Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru. Imaginations and Their Times. New Delhi: Sage Publications: 1–29.
Pani, N., S. Radhakrishna and K. G. Bhat (eds.). 2010. Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru. Imaginations and Their Times. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Pargiter, F. E. (ed.). 1904. The Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa—Translated with notes. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal (Bibliotheca Indica).
Pinch, W. R. 1996. Peasants and Monks in British India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Plutarch. 1914. Lives, Volume 1. London: W. Heinemann.
Pollock, S. 1993. Ramayana and Political Imagination in India. In: The Journal of Asian Studies, 52, 2: 261–297.
Pushpamala, N. 2008. Sthala Puranagalu: Place Legends. In: A. De (ed.). Multiple City. Writings of Bangalore. New Delhi: Penguin Books: 198–205.
Rigney, A. 1992. The Point of Stories: On Narrative Communication and Its Cognitive Functions. In: Poetics Today, 13, 2: 263–283.
Shivashankar, C. V. 2008. City for a Song. In: A. De (ed.). Multiple City. Writings of Bangalore. New Delhi: Penguin Books: 37–38.
Singh, C. 2008. New Shoots and Old Roots. In: A. De (ed.). Multiple City. Writings of Bangalore. New Delhi: Penguin Books: 49–60.
Thapar, R. 1971. The Image of the Barbarian in Early India. In: Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13, 4: 408–436.
Thapar, R. 1989. Epic and History: Tradition, Dissent and Politics in India. In: Past & Present, 125: 3–26.
Titus Livius 1912. The History of Rome. Transl. Rev. Canon Roberts. London: J.M. Dent and Sons.
Todorov, T. 1965. Théorie de la literature. Paris: Seuil.
Trachtenberg, M. 1998. The Past Under Siege. In: Wall Street Journal, July 17, 1998, online: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/trachtenberg/histsoc/wsj.html (accessed on: 28.11.2015).
Tul’sī Dās 1991. Rām’carit’mānas. Ed. by H. P. Poddar. Gorakhpur: Gita Press (6th edn.).
Varrel, A. 2008. Les lacs de Bangalore. Éléments de lecture de la Garden City du Sud de l’Inde. In: Géographie et cultures, 62: 61–78.
Vico, G. 1959. La scienza nuova (Principj di scienza nuova d’intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni). In: P. Rossi (ed.). 1959. Opere. Milano: Rizzoli, online: http://www.letteraturaitaliana.net/pdf/Volume_7/t204.pdf (accessed on: 28.11.2015).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.