No Future for an Urban Past

Through the reigns of the Kirats, the Lichhavis and finally the Mallas, the Valley's towns developed and maintained a "religio-cultural urbanism" that was unique. Sadly, the last forty years have been enough to destroy much of the cultural fabric of these settlements..Dense settlements began to emerge in Kathmandu Valley at least 1500 years ago. But first, there were the Kirats, who inhabited and ruled Kathmandu Valley in the latter half of the first millennium BC. Although nothing definite can be said about the settlements established by the Kirats, it can be surmised from place-names that their settlements were mostly located at the foothills of the Valley rim and on the ridge spurs extending inward. The Kirat places of worship were located on hilltops, which today remain active as Hindu or Buddhist piths ("power places") such as Phulchoki, Nagarjun, Changu and Bishankhu..Around the 2nd century AD, towards the end of the Kirat period and by the early Lichhavi period, small (own-like settlements began to emerge on high ground on the Valley floor. Using the Lichhavi names, they were towns like Khopring (now Bhaktapur), Lembati (Lele), Bungayumi (Bungamati), Thencho (Dahachok) and Mathang (possibly today´s Bansbari). Along with these settlements, new piths took root, like the Adinath of Chobar, Bungmalokeswor of Bungamati and Saraswati of Lele..By the middle of the Licchavi period, about the 7th century AD, many temple towns had developed within the Valley, which may have vied in size and importance with the capital towns of Maneswor, Sankasya, Gokarna and Deupatan, which were themselves expanding. These towns usually developed on ridges adjacent to rivers, on land that was not agriculturally productive. The cultural nucleus was provided by the ruling temple or pith, and the economic base was intensive farming and expanding trade with each other and with states to the north and south of the Valley..Strategic considerations probably account for the periodic shifting of settlements within the Valley, and the growth of towns like Gokarna, Deupatan, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Lele, Kisipidi and Naxal. The changes in the ruling houses during the Kirat and Lichhavi times might have been another reason for the dispersal. During the late-Lichhavi and early-Malla periods (8th to 12th century) the temple towns also doubled as tax collectorates and as defence units away from the capital towns, further polarising settlements around them..The smaller Lichhavi settlements developed into the Malla towns. These small towns, energized by abundant agriculture and trade, developed into the accomplished Malla period settlements whose ambience is so decisively present even today. Imbued with a strong sense of religio-cultural urbanism, these towns saw continuous development over the next 600 years, until the 18th century..From about the beginning of the Malla period, we are able to get some indication of town size and population. Just prior to the Mallas´ dominance, Kathmandu town had grown to about 1,800 houses. This "Kathmandu" most likely referred to a settlement between Pashupati and Naxal, and not, as many historians tend to believe, the current Basantpur-centric Kathmandu..In the 13th century, A nanda Mall a expanded the town of Bhaktapur to about 12,000 houses, while the nearby Banepa, Panauti, Nala and other settlements on the eastern reaches of the Valley had about 700 houses each. By the year 1655, Patan had 24,000 houses..Meanwhile, the Lichhavi villages producing specific agricultural produce or labour services were developing under the Mallas as specialised satellite towns, one focusing on oil pressing, another on pottery-making, and so on. These specialised towns served either a particular city-state, or the whole Valley..Even in the early Malla period, efforts were made to restrict the growth of the capital towns, such as when satellite settlements like Kirtipur were laid out Kirtipur´s tole (ward) names were derived from those of toles in the parent city, which was Patan. At least 11 such place-names which have their origins in Patan survive to this day in Kirtipur..A DEVELOPING MOSAIC.The pre-1950 urban form of the Kathmandu Valley towns was thus a result of cultural accretion over two millennia, made possible by a unique cultural continuity and the overwhelming dominance of religious strictures which directed the lives of the urban inhabitants. The physical space was philosophically defined through the Vastupurusha Mandala, a unified design principle in the shape of a square diagram. The principle extended doctrinal control over the physical activity of building houses, palaces, villages and towns. The Mandala dictated specific locations and ´directionality´ of temples and deities in the Valley settlements, with specific boundary deities and cremation grounds serving as the outer markers..Towns which were expanding could not ignore the location of the boundary gods and piths as they shifted outwards. Often, a growing town would create new series of cultural sites at its expanding perimeter. This process of expansion around the original nucleus, which could have been a palace, a major temple or a tax collectorate, placed politico- religious nobility at the center, circled by markets with middle-class housing. These were in turn surrounded by lower-class housing interspersed with religious sites which served as perimeter markers. The whole of this was enveloped by agricultural land..These distinct sectors of the Valley towns were sprinkled with various religious sites and temples, which became the polarising centers for the neighbourhood population. These nodes, distanced by time and space, were controlled by an ordered framework in which godly movement remained as conceptually meaningful as the response of the expanding town to the welfare and peace of the living being. With the passage of time, market squares and new neighbourhoods developed around these nodes..With the shifting of power among the various Valley towns, there was duplication of temples and piths between them. One town´s deity soon had a mother goddess. In another, settlements were linked with sister temples or daughter temples and dyochhes, which house images of goddesses. Festivities which emphasize the inter-urban relationships are still enacted seasonally, tying together two towns or two parts of the same town..RESILIENCE.The Valley towns´ culture, demographics and character proved resilient to the historical vicissitudes following the eclipse of the Mallas. For example, Prithvi Narayan´s takeover of the Valley in 1769 left them largely intact. Neither did the various other political and cultural changes that took place in the Valley before 1845, when Jung Bahadur took power, appear to cause adverse impact on the character of urban settlements. Among the significant changes were the increasing Parabatey population, the rise of non-Newar nobility, the infusion of ethnic groups with no urban history, the lack of community-based life-style of the non-Newar population-;1 and so on..The Rana rule brought significant psychological distress into the urban fabric by introducing Victorian palaces and their underlying concept — the occupation of large chunks of agricultural land outside the old boundaries of urban Kathmandu and Lalitpur. For the common people and craftsmen, the temples and the durbar squares lost some of their importance. The new points of reference for many became the Victorian palaces with their decor, materials and technology. The marvels of traditional culture were psychologically in eclipse..However, the occupation of lands by the Ranas could be seen as a boon in disguise: the urbanism of the Valley towns remained unaffected because the Ranas built their fantasy estates outside the settlement boundaries. For better or worse, the Rana enclaves also served as physical barriers to expansion. The deliberate Rana policy of restricting migration into the Valley ("Nepal Khaldo") also helped maintain the physical and cultural integrity of the settlements..CULTURAL DEATH MARCH.The changes since the collapse of the Rana regime in 1950 have been so powerful that four decades have been enough to culturally destroy the Valley urbanism developed and maintained over 15 centuries..The nature, scale and speed of urban expansion since the 1950s have been marked by accelerating breakdown of the religio-cultural framework of the Valley towns. The fast and culturally incongruous physical expansion of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur has brought severe stress both inside the towns (Duney, as Newari speakers will know) and outside (Piney)..Duney, there has been cultural and physical destruction of the city nodes such as the durbar squares, market squares and other chowks, essentially reducing the religious landmarks into building artefacts benefit of cultural meaning, surrounded by incongruous development. The characteristic main streets and their cultural hubs are on a death march..The Piney stresses are more visible, particularly to the non-Newar outsider. The expansion of settlements beyond the cultural and religious boundaries into historically protected agricultural and natural areas has engulfed the piths; even funeral areas have forcibly been brought into the urban domain. The power places of Maitidevi, Tunandevi, Kankeswori and Sovabhagbati have all been reduced to "in-town" features, without a planned outward placement of new piths. The cremation ghats and Kumaris, perimeter deities, no longer serve a boundary function..Only the location of me monuments and the piths are intact; their religio-cultural domain has been much reduced, physically and otherwise. Their potency and meaning are on the verge of being erased forever. Additionally, today´s urban development is engulfing unstudied archaeological and historical sites. Careful study of unbuilt areas might have led to the discovery of Lichhavi and early Malla sites, but today´s urban march makes them forever inaccessible..The loss is not only one of physical space. The cultural festivals which link the urban settlements are more and more difficult to enact because the ordained sites are out of reach. For example, the jatra of Maitidevi can no longer travel up to Kankeswari because the responsible Guthi household was pushed off. The Mahalaxmi khat can no longer be pulled up to Kiladol because the site has been erased, it is said, because public lands have been encroached upon. The Bhagabati of Naxal can no longer make her jatra rounds to Basantapur and Batsala..There are numerous other instances of such profound cultural losses occuring due to the physical destruction or change in the environment of religious sites. The recent legal provision allowing conversion of guthi (religious) lands to raikar land (paying rent to government) has further speeded up the process of destruction..URBAN FUTURE.Unfortunately, many cultural, religious and historical sites, and the meaning they hold, have already been obliterated and it is too late to resurrect them. However, potent sites still remain, and they can be protected from conversion into cultural deserts..It is important to understand that the problem of the changing urban landscape is not only one of the Newars losing cultural sites related to their past Though it is true that major aspects of the cultural development of Kathmandu Valley owe their origins to the Newars and their ethnic predecessors, the Valley´s legacy has a multi-ethnic substance. This makes cultural preservation of the Valley important to all communities..The future of the Valley´s urban milieu would indeed be culturally barren in the absence of the legacy of its cultural and religious past. The assimilation of in-migrants into the cultural milieu of the Valley towns is still possible, since the religious mix of the migrants is similar to the religious mix of the population in the hey-day of these towns..Though the Kathmandu scene may be physically beyond repair, Patan and Bhaktapur still remain well within the possibility of a planned urban expansion in which there is limited urban conservation as well as sufficient infusion of cultural nodes to serve as polarisation centers. A realistic cultural conservation strategy combined with good urban sense can give our urban planners a hopeful approach towards evolving a future urban space which will demonstrate and justify continuity with our brilliant past The ultra-conservationists and ultra -modernists should both take to the sidelines if we are to try for a healthy response to the malaise of the past four decades..May the gods ran am undisturbed in their power places and may the Valley inhabitants derive urban peace from the continuing potency of their deities!.S.R.Tiwari, an architect, is a reader at Tribhuvan University and Dean of the Institute of Engineering.