Abstract
This essay tries to look at the way in which Kālidāsa approaches towns in his three kāvyas: Meghadūta, Kumārasaṁbhava and Raghuvaṁśa. Most of the descriptions are stereotypical, using stock phrases and formulaic expressions, some of them straight from texts like the Arthaśāstra. However, there is one city that is described somewhat realistically—Ayodhya, which was deserted following Rāma’s departure. Both these—the stereotypes of prosperous towns and the realism of a decayed town—fit into the pattern of ‘urban decay’ presented by historians on the basis of archaeological evidence, a landmark in Indian historiography.
Keywords
There is a verse in Daṇḍin’s Kāvādarśa (c. eighth century AD) that prescribes the essential items that a mahākāvya in Sanskrit should describe elaborately.
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The list begins:
nagarārṇavaśailartu/candārkodayavarṇanaiḥ | udyānasalilakrīḍā/madhupānaratotsavaiḥ || …alaṁkṛtaṁ… ([A kāvya] should be embellished with descriptions of cities, oceans, mountains, the seasons, the rising of the moon and the sun, love-games in the garden, water and festivities of drinking and sex.
The first thing that a kāvya should be describing is, thus, the city. Those who wrote after Daṇḍin have more or less followed him, with some of them, such as Māgha, doing it all too literally and in that order! Kālidāsa had written his poems at least four centuries before Daṇḍin laid down this prescription. It is interesting that Kālidāsa’s poems are not as rich in descriptions of urban centres as are the post-Daṇḍin kāvyas. It will be instructive to look at such descriptions and ask a few questions from our experience of reading the history of India in the early medieval period to which Kālidāsa belonged.
Let us take the first example from Meghadūta.
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In instructing his messenger, the cloud, about the route he has to take and describing what each spot has to offer him, the hero, the Yakṣa, says that the cloud will be advised to go via Ujjayinī in Avanti, even though he has to take a detour. Then,
prāpyāvantīn udayanakathākovidagrāmavṛddhān pūrvoddiṣṭām anusara purīṃ śrīviśālāṃ viśālām svalpībhūte sucaritaphale svargiṇāṃ gāṃ gatānāṃ śeṣaiḥ puṇyair hṛtam iva divaḥ kāntimat khaṇḍam ekam // 30 (On reaching the land of Avánti, whose village elders are experts in narrating the stories of Udayana, go to the magnificent city, Viśālā. It is as if the inhabitants of paradise, having used what remains of their merits, seized a unique fragment of the beautiful heaven on returning to earth with the rewards of their good deeds, almost spent.) dīrghīkurvan paṭu madakalaṃ kūjitaṃ sārasānāṃ pratyūṣeṣu sphuṭitakamalāmodamaitrīkaṣāyaḥ yatra strīṇāṃ harati surataglānim aṅgānukūlaḥ siprāvātaḥ priyatama iva prārthanācāṭukāraḥ // 31 (The breeze from the Śiprā is fragrant from union with the scent of lotuses opened in the mornings. It draws out the shrill, drunken warble of the cranes. It takes away the ladies’ languor after lovemaking like a sweet-talking suitor soliciting favours.) jālodgīrṇair upacitavapuḥ keśasaṃskāradhūpair- bandhuprītyā bhavanaśikhibhir dattanṛttopahāraḥ harmyeṣv asyāḥ kusumasurabhiṣv adhvakhinnāntarātmā nītvā rātriṃ lalitavanitāpādarāgāṅkiteṣu // 32 As you will be wearied by your journey, allow your body to be engorged with the scented smoke for dressing hair pouring forth from the lattices of windows and receiving the offerings of brotherly affection that peacocks on the houses give you in the form of their dance. You should spend the night there atop mansions fragrant with flowers and marked with red dye from the feet of lovely ladies. bhartuḥ kaṇṭhacchavir iti gaṇaiḥ sādaraṃ vīkṣyamāṇaḥ puṇyaṃ yāyās tribhuvanaguror dhāma caṇḍeśvarasya dhūtodyānaṃ kuvalayarajogandhibhir gandhavatyās- toyakrīḍāniratayuvatisnānatiktair marudbhiḥ // 33 (Then, watched respectfully by the ganas – that you bear the hue of their master’s throat – proceed to the sacred home of Caṇḍeśvara, the teacher of the three worlds. The gardens there are fanned by the breeze from Gandhavatī, scented with the pollen of water-lily and pungent from the bathing of the maidens who love to sport in her water.) apy anyasmiñ jaladhara mahākālam āsādya kāle sthātavyaṃ te nayanaviṣayaṃ yāvad atyeti bhānuḥ kurvan saṃdhyābalipaṭahatāṃ śūlinaḥ ślāghanīyām āmandrāṇāṃ phalam avikalaṃ lapsyase garjitānām // 34 (Even if, o cloud, you reach Mahākāla at some other time of the day, stay there until the sun disappears. Playing the praiseworthy part of the drum in Shiva’s offering in the evening, you shall reap the reward for your rolling thunder.) pādanyāsakvaṇitaraśanās tatra līlāvadhūtai ratnacchāyāracitavalibhiś cāmaraiḥ klāntahastāḥ veśyās tvatto nakhapadasukhān prāpya varṣāgrabindūn āmokṣyante tvayi madhukaraśreṇidīrghān kaṭākṣān // 35 (The courtesans there, their girdles tinkling at every step and hands weary from daintily waving fly whisks with handles encrusted in lustrous gems, will throw at you sidelong glances, long like a line of bees on receiving from you the first drops of rain to soothe their scratches.) paścād uccairbhujataruvanaṃ maṇḍalenābhilīnaḥ sāṃdhyaṃ tejaḥ pratinavajapāpuṣparaktaṃ dadhānaḥ nṛttārambhe hara paśupater ārdranāgājinecchāṃ śāntodvegastimitanayanaṃ dṛṣṭabhaktir bhavānyā // 36 (Next, at the start of Paśupati’s dance, wrap yourself around the tall forest of his tree-like arms, and take on the dusky red glow of a fresh hibiscus flower, thus removing his desire for a moist elephant skin. Bhavāni will see your devotion, her eyes stilled by the alleviation of her anxiety.) gacchantīnāṃ ramaṇavasatiṃ yoṣitāṃ tatra naktaṃ ruddhāloke narapatipathe sūcibhedyais tamobhiḥ saudāmanyā kanakanikaṣasnigdhayā darśayorvīṃ toyotsargastanitamukharo mā sma bhūr viklavās tāḥ // 37 (Show the way to the women going to their lovers’ houses at night, when the royal highway there is obscured in pitch darkness, with lightning lovely as a golden streak across a touchstone. But don’t be too loud with your downpour and thunder – they are nervous!)
The first few verses in the second part of Meghadūta, Part II, are about the town of Alakā. The Yakṣa describes the route and assures him that he would not miss Alakā:
vidyutvantaṃ lalitavanitāḥ sendracāpaṃ sacitrāḥ saṃgītāya prahatamurajāḥ snigdhagambhīraghoṣam antastoyaṃ maṇimayabhuvas tuṅgam abhraṃlihāgrāḥ prāsādās tvāṃ tulayitum alaṃ yatra tais tair viśeṣaiḥ // 64 (The mansions there bear comparison with you with their various wonders: you have your lightning, they their lovely ladies; you have your rainbows, they their colourful pictures; they beat drums to make music, you have your gentle rumble; you have water inside, they have floors made of jewels; you are lofty, their turrets kiss the clouds.) haste līlākamalam alakaṃ bālakundānuviddhaṃ nītā lodhraprasavarajasā pāṇḍutām ānanaśrīḥ cūḍāpāśe navakuravakaṃ cāru karṇe śirīṣaṃ sīmante ca tvadupagamajaṃ yatra nīpaṃ vadhūnām // 65 (There the ladies have lotuses in their hands to play with, fresh jasmine flowers woven into their hair, radiant complexions blanched by the pollen of lodhra flowers, fresh kuravaka blossoms in their topknots, pretty śirīṣa blooms in their ears and, kadamba flowers born of your arrival in their hair-partings.) yasyāṃ yakṣāḥ sitamaṇimayāny etya harmyasthalāni jyotiśchāyākusumaracanāny uttamastrīsahāyāḥ āsevante madhu ratiphalaṃ kalpavṛkṣaprasūtaṃ tvadgambhīradhvaniṣu śanakaiḥ puṣkareṣv āhateṣu // 66 (The yakshas there, accompanied by the finest ladies, frequent terraces of palaces fashioned from crystal. Their flower-decorations are the reflections of stars, and they drink aphrodisiac wine sprung from the wish-fulfilling tree as your gentle rumblings reverberate in the ponds.) yatra strīṇāṃ priyatamabhujocchvāsitāliṅgitānām aṅgaglāniṃ suratajanitāṃ tantujālāvalambāḥ tvatsaṃrodhāpagamaviśadaiś cotitāś candrapādair vyālumpanti sphuṭajalalavasyandinaś candrakāntāḥ // 67 (There moonbeams become bright as your veil is removed, and drops of water oozing from the globules of moonstones hanging from the laces on ceilings relieve the languor of lovemaking of ladies choked by the tight hugs of lovers.) netrā nītāḥ satatagatinā yad vimānāgrabhūmīr- ālekhyānāṃ salilakaṇikādoṣam utpādya sadyaḥ śaṅkāspṛṣṭā iva jalamucas tvādṛśā yatra jālair- dhūmodgārānukṛtinipuṇā jarjarā niṣpatanti // 68 (There, driven to the top floors of the mansions by the ever-moving wind, clouds like you damage pictures with raindrops and imitate streams of smoke skilfully by falling apart and fleeing through the lattice-windows as if seized with fear.) nīvībandhocchvasitaśithilaṃ yatra yakṣāṅganānāṃ vāsaḥ kāmād anibhṛtakareṣv ākṣipatsu priyeṣu arcistuṅgān abhimukham api prāpya ratnapradīpān hrīmūḍhānāṃ bhavati viphalapreraṇā cūrṇamuṣṭiḥ // 69 (There, paramours with their immodest hands pull off the silk robes of yaksha girls, already loosened by their deep breath who, befuddled by embarrassment, vainly fling fistfuls of powder at tall-flamed, jewel lamps.) gatyutkampād alakapatitair yatra mandārapuṣpaiḥ patracchedaiḥ kanakakamalaiḥ karṇavibhraṃśibhiś ca muktājālaiḥ stanaparicitacchinnasūtraiś ca hārair- naiśo mārgaḥ savitur udaye sūcyate kāminīnām // 70 (There mandāra flowers fallen from their curly hair on account of hasty gait, golden lotuses slipped from their ears with petals shattered, and pearls from necklaces worn on their breasts strewn around with their threads broken, indicate the road taken by women at sunrise.) matvā devaṃ dhanapatisakhaṃ yatra sākṣād vasantaṃ prāyaś cāpaṃ na vahati bhayān manmathaḥ ṣaṭpadajyam sabhrūbhaṅgaprahitanayanaiḥ kāmilakṣyeṣv amoghais- tasyārambhaś caturavanitāvibhramair eva siddhaḥ // 71 (There, the god of love, fearful as he knows that Śiva lives there himself, tends not to carry his bee-stringed bow. The coquettish gestures of clever ladies do his job, their unerring glances sent forth by arched brows to their targets.)
Another city that Kālidāsa mentions is Madhurā, which Śatrughna finds on the Yamunā after killing Lavaṇa, the demon.
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He does not describe it too much—there is just one verse on it, in śloka metre:
yā saurājyaprakāśābhir babhau pauravibhūtibhiḥ svargābhiṣyandavamanaṃ kṛtvevopaniveśitā // 15.29 ([It] shone forth on account of the prosperity of its citizens governed by a good ruler, as if it was settled by bringing people from heaven.)
There is yet another city described in Kumārasaṁbhava.
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The seven sages, whom Śiva had deputed to Himavant as his messengers seeking the hand of Pārvatī, reached Oṣadhiprastha. The city was
alakām ativāhyeva vasatiṃ vasusaṃpadām svargābhiṣyandavamanaṃ kṛtvevopaniveśitam // 6.37 (prosperous with houses of people settled there, who were either carried away from Alakā or migrated from heaven) gaṅgāsrotaḥparikṣiptavaprāntarjvalitauṣadhi bṛhanmaṇiśilāsālaṃ guptāv api manoharam // 6.38 (Gaṅgā flows around this town like a moat, and on its bank are herbs which glow [at night]. The huge rampart walls are made of ruby. Thus, even when hidden [from the public] it is very beautiful.) jitasiṃhabhayā nāgā yatrāśvā bilayonayaḥ yakṣāḥ kiṃpuruṣāḥ paurā yoṣito vanadevatāḥ // 6.39 (Here elephants are not scared of lions, and horses are born in caves. Here yakṣas and kiṁpuruṣas are the citizens; and forest goddesses, the ladies of the town.) śikharāsaktameghānāṃ vyajante yatra veśmanām anugarjitasaṃdigdhāḥ karaṇair murajasvanāḥ // 6.40 (The sound of drums can well be confused with the rumblings of clouds hanging on the roofs of mansions here; but the rhythm dispels any such doubt.) yatra kalpadrumair eva vilolaviṭapāṃśukaiḥ gṛhayantrapatākāśrīr apaurādaranirmitā // 6.41 (The silken clothes fluttering on the branches of the wish-granting trees here look like flags raised without any effort by the citizens.) yatra sphaṭikaharmyeṣu naktam āpānabhūmiṣu jyotiṣāṃ pratibimbāni prāpnuvanty upahāratām // 6.42 (Reflections of stars offer themselves as gifts at night in the drinking halls of the crystal mansions here.) yatrauṣadhiprakāśena naktaṃ darśitasaṃcarāḥ anabhijñās tamisrāṇāṃ durdineṣv abhisārikāḥ // 6.43 (Courtesans going out to their lovers, even at nights covered by thick clouds, do not so much as know what darkness is as their paths are lit by the glow of herbs.) yauvanāntaṃ vayo yasmin nāntakaḥ kusumāyudhāt ratikhedasamutpannā nidrāsaṃjñāviparyayaḥ // 6.44 (Here the ultimate in age is youth; the closest to death is love; languor following love-making is just another name of sleep.) bhrūbhedibhiḥ sakampoṣṭhair lalitāṅgulitarjanaiḥ yatra kopaiḥ kṛtāḥ strīṇām āprasādārthinaḥ priyāḥ // 6.45 (Here angry women, their eyebrows knit, their lips shivering and their graceful fingers threatening, turn lovers into supplicants.) saṁtānakatarucchāyāsuptavidyādharādhvagaṁ yasya cōpavanaṁ bāhyaṁ sugandhirggandhamādanaṁ 46. (In the cool shade of the wish-granting trees of the fragrant garden outside this town, vidyādhara wayfarers take a nap.) atha tē munayō divyāḥ prēkṣya haimavataṁ puraṁ svarggābhisandhisukr̥taṁ vañcanāṁ iva mēnirē. 47. (Now, seeing this city on the Himalayas, the divine sages felt cheated that they were performing holy rites in order to attain heaven.)
There can be no two opinions about the beauty of these verses as poetry. However, upon reading them closely, it will be clear that they are not expressions of a real experience of the city, one which the poet has any real knowledge of. What do we have in Kālidasa’s cities? The chirping of the sārasa birds, the fragrance of lotus, village elders (the author’s emphasis) adept in telling Udayana’s stories, scented smoke emitting through the latticed ventilators of houses, mansions marked with the red dye on the feet of women, the dance of domesticated peacocks—these are what we saw in Ujjayinī. There is one more thing that is special about that town: the Mahākāla temple. That pilgrim centre and the festivities at dusk there, as well as its sacred prostitutes, are all subjects of engaging description.
Even in Alakā, there is no difference in the character of the city. Moonstones that melt in the moonlight, vivacious damsels and their arts such as music and dance, their celestial paramours and their love-sports are the subjects that Kālidāsa takes up in his own inimitable style. Similarly, in Oṣadhiprastha. It is the Yakṣas, Kiṁpuruṣas, as the Pauras (city-dwellers), the forest goddesses as ladies of the town and their glass houses that the sages saw there. In short, it is not difficult to see that these cities are conjured up in imagination, with images of the gaṇikās, nagarakas and suchlike—it is not possible to see them as anything more than a stereotype. There is nothing in these urban experiences that those who are familiar with the real urban experience might expect. They are not trading centres, administrative quarters or military camps. High density of population, trade, vehicular traffic, craft production or such features that usually characterise an urban centre are not present here. On the other hand, these are songs where formulaic expressions and stock phrases available to describe any city are strung together by the poet. There is no major difference whether it is Ujjayinī, Alakā or Oṣadhiprastha. Yes, the Mahākāla temple is special about Ujjayinī—more about it later.
Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra discusses in detail the ways in which a new settlement can be created. The second book opens with the statement: bhūta.pūrvam abhūta.pūrvaṃ vā jana.padaṃ para.deśa.apavāhanena sva.deśa.abhiṣyanda.vamanena vā niveśayet. 5 Either by inducing to immigrate (paradeśāpavāhanena) or by causing the thickly populated centres of his own kingdom to send forth the excessive population (svadeśābhishyandavamanena vā), the king may construct villages either on new sites or on old ruins (bhūtapūrvam abhūtapūrvam vā). 6 It is this prescription in the Arthaśāstra that Kālidāsa repeats—and in the same words. While the settlement of Oṣadhiprastha was by both inducing people of Alakā to migrate (apavāhana) and by sending forth excessive population (abhiṣyandavamana) from heaven, Madhurā was peopled by the latter process alone (abhiṣyandavamana). In both contexts, half an Anuṣṭubh is the same: svargābhiṣyandavamanaṃ kṛtvevopaniveśitā. To be sure, Kālidasa was careful about using the feminine gender for Madhurā and masculine gender for Oṣadhiprastha! What this repetition shows is that even a great poet of the calibre of Kālidāsa can only repeat the refrains about towns in the absence of a lived urban experience. What is said about one town is repeated about others with minor differences and, on occasions, with no difference at all. This makes it plausible that Kālidāsa had no direct experience of a real town, with trade, artisanal activities, population and vehicular traffic. 7 This reminds us of the argument of historians who believe that there was a considerable decline of trade and decay of urban centres in India in the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. Descriptions of the Mahākāla temple of Ujjayinī, too, strengthen their argument that old towns, which were centres of trade and administration, tended to become pilgrim centres. The fact that Kālidāsa has devoted four full verses to this temple shows its importance in his time. It is for these reasons that the towns that Kālidasa built in the world of imagination look very artificial, even with his unequalled poetic abilities.
However, there is an entirely different kind of town in the Raghuvaṁśa: the Ayodhyā of the sixteenth canto. It is a depopulated and decadent town. What makes the description of this town touch our heart, in a way entirely different from the stereotype that we saw in earlier instances, is that it expresses the urban decadence that the poet may have experienced personally. As Rāma had accomplished his mission and wanted to join his ultimate abode, the people of Ayodhyā deserted the town and followed him. His elder son, Kuśa, was anointed king. It was from Dvārakā, where his father had installed him, that Kuśa ruled. His reign was impeccable. The poet goes on
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:
athārdharātre stimitapradīpe śayyāgṛhe suptajane prabuddhaḥ kuśaḥ pravāsasthakalatraveṣām adṛṣṭapūrvāṃ vanitām apaśyat // 16.4 (Then, at midnight, when everybody was asleep and the wick of the lamp stood still, Kuśa, who was still awake, saw a woman whom he had not seen earlier, dressed like the habit of the wife of a person who had been living away for long.) sā sādhusādhāraṇapārthivarddheḥ sthitvā purastāt puruhūtabhāsaḥ jetuḥ pareṣāṃ jayaśabdapūrvaṃ tasyāñjaliṃ bandhumato babandha // 16.5 (She stood in front of the king, glorious like Indra himself, bearing the royal splendour befitting good kings, who had defeated enemies and had good friends. She folded her hands and said “Hail!”) athānupoḍhārgalam apy agāraṃ chāyām ivādarśatalaṃ praviṣṭām savismayo dāśarathes tanūjaḥ provāca pūrvārdhaviṣṛṭatalpaḥ // 16.6 (Surprised to see her who had entered the house without unbolting the door like an image inside the mirror, Rāma’s son, half rising from his bed, told her as follows:) labdhāntarā sāvaraṇe ‘pi gehe yogaprabhāvo na ca lakṣyate te bibharṣi cākāram anirvṛtānāṃ mṛṇālinī haimam ivoparāgam // 16.7 (You entered this house although the doors still remain closed; but I don’t see any sign of yogic power in you. You look pale, like a lotus assailed by frost.) kā tvaṃ śubhe kasya parigraho vā kiṃ vā madabhyāgamakāraṇaṃ te ācakṣva matvā vaśināṃ raghūṇāṃ manaḥ parastrīvimukhapravṛtti // 16.8 (Who are you, beautiful woman? And whose wife? What brings you to me? Tell me, knowing full well that the scions of Raghu are self-controlled, and not interested in other women. tam abravīt sā guruṇā navadyā yā nītapaurā svapadonmukhena tasyāḥ puraḥ saṃprati vītanāthāṃ jānīhi rājann adhidevatāṃ mām // 16.9 (She told him: “O King, I am the presiding deity of that faultless city, now orphaned, as the citizens had been carried away by your father as he was ascending to the heaven.) vasaukasārām abhibhūya sāhaṃ saurājyabaddhotsavayā vibhūtyā samagraśaktau tvayi sūryavaṃṣye sati prapannā karuṇām avasthām // 16.10 (Time was when, under good governance, I had surpassed even the most prosperous Alakā. Now, even with you of the solar dynasty around, my condition has become pathetic.” viśīrṇatalpāṭṭaśato niveśaḥ paryastaśālaḥ prabhuṇā vinā me viḍambayaty astanimagnasūryaṃ dināntam ugrānilabhinnamegham // 16.11 (The mansions in their hundreds have fallen apart, their walls broken and with no one to occupy them, they look like clouds at sunset shattered by a strong wind.) niśāsu bhāsvatkalanūpurāṇāṃ yaḥ saṃcaro ‘bhūd abhisārikāṇām nadanmukholkāvicitāmiṣābhiḥ sa vāhyate rājapathaḥ śivābhiḥ // 16.12 (The royal road, which was once traversed by courtesans with their dazzling anklets jingling, is now infested with jackals on their prowl, flashes of fire coming out of their mouths.) āsphālitaṃ yat pramadākarāgrair mṛdaṅgadhīradhvanim anvagacchat vanyair idānīṃ mahiṣais tad ambhaḥ śṛṅgāhataṃ krośati dīrghikāṇām // 16.13 (The waters of the ponds, playfully beaten by the sporting hands of beautiful women, once used to raise the loud sound of mṛdaṅga; they whimper now, being agitated by the horns of wild buffaloes.) vṛkṣēśayā yaṣṭinivāsabhaṅgān mṛdaṅgaśabdāpagamādalāsyāḥ prāptā davōlkāhataśēṣabarhyāḥ krīḍāmayūrāḥ vanabarhiṇatvaṁ. 16.14 (Roosting on branches of trees as the poles meant for that are broken losing their rhythm as there is no sounding of mṛdaṅga, their feathers burned in forest fire, the pet peacocks have attained a wild character.) sopānamārgēṣu ca yēṣu rāmā nikṣiptavatyaś caraṇān sarāgān sadyōhatanyaṅkubhirasradigddhaṁ vyāghraiḥ padaṁ tēṣu nidhīyatē mē. 16.15 (The steps on which women used to place their feet dyed with red lac are now stamped by the paws of tigers with the blood of freshly killed deer.) citradvipāḥ padmavanāvatīrṇāḥ kareṇubhir dattamṛṇālabhaṅgāḥ nakhāṅkuśāghātavibhinnakumbhāḥ saṃrabdhasiṃhaprahṛtaṃ vahanti // 16.16 (Angry elephants have scratched the paintings on the city walls of elephants being fed by cow elephants with shoots of lotus from the ponds.) stambheṣu yoṣitpratiyātanānām utkrāntavarṇakramadhūsarāṇām stanottarīyāṇi bhavanti saṅgān nirmokapaṭṭāḥ phaṇibhir vimuktāḥ // 16.17 (The paint on the figures of women sculpted on the pillars have faded away in time; the slough cast off by snakes now cover their breasts.) kālāntaraśyāmasudheṣu naktam itas tato rūḍhatṛṇāṅkureṣu ta eva muktāguṇaśuddhayo ’pi harmyeṣu mūrchanti na candrapādāḥ // 16.18 (Moonlight, though still pure like pearl, does not shine as before on the walls of the mansions, whose limewash has become black with time and on which grass has sprouted here and there.) āvarjya śākhāḥ sadayaṃ ca yāsāṃ puṣpāṇy upāttāni vilāsinībhiḥ vanyaiḥ pulindair iva vānarais tāḥ kliśyanta udyānalatā madīyāḥ // 16.19 (The creepers in my garden, from which damsels used to pluck flowers with great care, are molested by monkeys like women violated by kirātas.) rātrāv anāviṣkṛtadīpabhāsaḥ kāntāmukhaśrīviyutā divāpi tiraskriyante kṛmitantujālair vicchinnadhūmaprasarā gavākṣāḥ // 16.20 (The windows of houses do not show lamps at night; nor are the faces of beautiful women seen through them during days. The smoke of incense does not escape through them—they are all covered by cobwebs.) balikriyāvarjitasaikatāni snānīyasaṃsargam anāpanuvanti upāntavānīragṛhāṇi dṛṣṭvā śūnyāni dūye sarayūjalāni // 16.21 (I am pained by seeing the waters of Sarayū, its banks showing no signs of ancestral rites, its waters not mingled with toiletry and the bowers on the banks empty). tad arhasīmāṃ vasatiṃ visṛjya mām abhyupaituṃ kularājadhānīm hitvā tanuṃ kāraṇamānuṣīṃ tāṃ yathā gurus te paramātmamūrtim // 16.22 (Therefore, I pray that you leave this town and join me in the same way that your father cast off the human body and took on his real form.) tatheti tasyāḥ praṇayaṃ pratītaḥ pratyagrahīt prāgraharo raghūṇām pūr apy abhivyaktamukhaprasādā śarīrabandhena tirobabhūva // 16.23 (“So be it”, said the foremost of Raghus, accepting her prayer. The Town, visibly happy, disappeared casting off her human form.)
The description of this decadent state of the city of Ayodhyā is realistic, with no recourse to stock phrases and formulaic expressions. It is worth asking why Kālidāsa, the quintessential poet, did not take up the city of Ayodhyā during her heyday under Dilīpa, Raghu, Aja, Daśaratha or Rāma. What is the significance of this moving description of a town after it decayed, a town that was extremely prosperous for many, many years? Perhaps insights from history will help raise and answer this and other similar questions.
Among the landmark theses in Indian historiography are those related to the decline of trade, disuse of coined money and decay of urban centres, particularly in the Gangetic valley in the Gupta and post-Gupta periods. These are interrelated. It may be useful to look at the received wisdom in Indian history in order to locate the historiographical importance of these theses. Whether or not pre-modern India had a historical sense, the practice of history as critical knowledge had its beginnings from the eighteenth century. The English East India Company became the dominant political power when they acquired the Diwani rights from the Mughal rulers. This necessitated that the new rulers should have knowledge of the law of the land, social institutions and the history of the country in general. It was necessary to learn Sanskrit and Persian, the languages of texts and documents that could shed light on these details, and they took to the study of these languages in a big way. Their study came to be known as Indology or Orientalism. The author is not going into the details. In the notion of these early Indologists and Orientalists, and the administrators who largely followed them, there were no cities in India in what was regarded as the ‘ancient’ period of their history. One of the defining features of the social form that was described as ‘Oriental Despotism’ and its Marxian variant, the Asiatic Mode of production, was the self-sufficient, autonomous villages. Charles Metcalf, for example, famously wrote
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The village communities are little republics, having nearly everything they can want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds to revolution . . . but the village community remains the same.
Another statement in this discursive formation was related to the unchanging character of Indian society. Both were mutually supportive. A society characterised by so many autonomous villages, intrinsically incapable of change, gave rise to a political structure presided over by despotic rulers. The replacement of one dynasty by another, sometimes silently and often violently, did not in reality bring about any structural changes. Historiography influenced by these colonial constructs expressed itself in two different ways: an imperialist statement that justified the empire and a nationalist statement that opposed it. It may sound like an irony that historians of both shades were drawing inspiration from the same sources—the writings of the Orientalists and Indologists—and although the two appeared diametrically opposite, they were, in reality, two sides of the same coin. Such differences as there were could be seen only in matters of detail—not of basic assumptions. While the imperialists saw the absence of towns and life in villages as so many defects of ’traditional’ India, the nationalists took these as a merit of eternal India. The bucolic, idyllic village was part of the India that was imagined. The nationalists, who claimed to reject the imperialist construction, never questioned the factuality behind the assumption of a ‘rural India’ or unchanging India; on the other hand, they sought to see an idyllic and eternal character in Indian civilisation. In short, they accepted the colonial assumptions, of course, in ways different from the imperialist use to which they were put.
It was in the post-Independence period that an alternative discourse came about. There was no longer an empire for the imperialist to defend and the nationalists to attack! The priorities of the concerned intellectual were different: The reconstruction of an economy that lay prostrate after nearly two centuries of colonial rule and restoration of the morale of a society that had sunk low were among them. In this context, with the political leadership and economic planning closer to the left, it is not surprising that a materialist understanding had its upper hand and the kind of history that D.D. Kosambi, R.S. Sharma and others wrote had greater acceptance than the kind of tournament-like contestations between the imperialist and nationalist historians—the A team and B team of colonialism, as it were. Kosamabi’s famous understanding of history may be repeated here: ‘History is the presentation, in chronological order, of successive developments in the means and relations of production’.
In such a discourse, where change is central to historical process, there is no place for changelessness. Such historical writing became more acceptable with the increased use of archaeological evidence that was tangible and verifiable. Clear notions about towns dating from the Bronze Age came to replace vague blabbering about ‘Indian villages’. The cities of early India were historicised. Historians also saw, with the help of irrefutable archaeological evidence, a ‘second urbanisation’ in the Gangetic valley after the decline of Harappan cities. This second urbanisation, which corresponded with the Later Vedic texts, was a major turning point in the history of the country: Many important developments, including the emergence of state and the rise of heterodox religious movements, were the products of this time and not unrelated to the second urbanisation.
This does not mean that it is only with the conception of the second urbanisation that the city became a subject of the historian’s study in India. Even earlier, there had been a few important studies on cities in ancient India. 10 None of them, however, takes up a historical analysis of the emergence, growth and decline of cities and the causality behind them, nor do they take on the notion that India was always characterised by village life.
The basic philosophy of history that Kosambi and those who followed him accepted was one that sought to historicise change in time. They also subjected the causality of change to analysis. They rejected the idea that the age of Kālidāsa, that is, the age of the Guptas, was the golden age of Indian history and put forward the thesis that during this period, economic, social and political relations in India were becoming feudal. Although several scholars had used the jargon of feudalism in the context of Indian history even earlier, it was Kosambi and Sharma who put forward the thesis of Indian feudalism, backed by empirical facts, theoretical rigour and placed within the disciplined historical method. 11
They saw that the practice of granting land, which had originated in the third-fourth century AD, signalled the origin of feudalism in India. What began as the grant of some land to an individual became widespread, with state functionaries and religious institutions becoming beneficiaries of the practice. To begin with, the grant of land, sufficient for the maintenance of one family, became very elaborate and gradually started to cover whole villages and even larger units. It was only the right to ‘cultivate the land and get it cultivated’ (karṣayataḥ karṣāpayataśca) that was alienated in the first instance. Even there, ‘get the land cultivated’ involved the subjection of the peasantry. Later, the donees were given the rights to collect taxes of different descriptions, maintain law and order and carry out other administrative functions within the benefices granted to them. When what were supposed to be the powers of the state got eroded and reached multiple nodes in this manner, the power structure of polity became completely decentralised. Villages became more or less self-sufficient. As a result of all these developments, local nodes of power took precedence. The old kind of state structure was supplanted by a hierarchically organised set of power relations. For instance, when the Mauryan king Aśoka described himself by the simple and elegant, but very powerful, title rājā, the Gupta king, Samudragupta, sported the high-sounding title mahārārājaparameśvara—that is, the Gupta kings had only an overlordship above the many rājas who wielded the real power. In reality, what these fireworks in the titles of kings show is the decline in power of the state over which they presided. Reading the Raghuvaṁśa closely, it can be seen that Dilīpa and Raghu are conceived of as such overlords. This hierarchical structure informed economic and social relations as well, providing it with the complexity typical of a feudal society. 12
The construction of Indian was subjected to criticism from many angles, both at the empirical and theoretical levels.
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One of the significant theoretical objections was that a major transformation of economy and society cannot be caused by an administrative action such as the granting of land to beneficiaries, however comprehensive it was. Sharma met this at two levels. First, he insisted that the land grants were not the cause but the symptom of the feudalisation of Indian economy and society
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; the real causes had to be looked for in a crisis in the relations of production. Śūdra labourers refusing to perform services they were required to, and Vaiśya peasants and traders refusing to pay taxes precipitated this crisis. The crisis was reflected in the accounts of the Kali Age in the Purāṇas, which were redacted in the Gupta and immediate post-Gupta periods.
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Sharma enumerated the features of the Kali Age as follows:
mixing of varṇas or varṇasaṃkara, hostility between śudras and brāhmaṇas, refusal of vaiśyas to pay and sacrifice (sic), oppression of people with taxes, widespread threat and robbery, insecurity of family and property, destruction of yogakṣema, growing importance of wealth over ritual status, and dominance of mleccha princes.
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Sharma and those who wrote after him, such as B.N.S. Yadava, D.N. Jha and Vijay Kumar Thakur, saw in these indications of social conflict that they were capable of bringing about a major transformation. Jha saw there was a crisis in the mode of production: What was earlier a śūdra-vaiśya mode of production was on the verge of collapse. 17 The real causality is to be looked for in this crisis.
Among the factors that brought about this crisis were decline of trade, disuse of coined money and decay of urban centres. R.S. Sharma examined the archaeological evidence brought out in excavations at centres in the Gangetic valley. He saw that the very same centres, which were sites of second urbanisation, threw up evidence of decline from layers dating from the third century AD. 18 According to him, ‘The decline and disappearance of the urban sites in Gupta or post-Gupta times is easy to prove but difficult to explain.’ He assumed that ‘The reasons for the decline and disappearance of towns in the Gupta and the post-Gupta phases seem to have been mainly economic.’ He counted, among them, ‘stoppage of the supply of gold from Central Asia and the Roman empire’ and ‘deforestation of the hinterland which supported these towns in the Gangetic basin’. 19 He elaborated his thesis on urban decay in his significant book, Urban Decay in India. 20 Written on the basis of archaeological evidence and taking up the case of 150 sites, this book may be described as elevating Indian historiography to new heights. Decline of trade and disuse of coined money 21 are phenomena that were known, but R.S. Sharma showed these phenomena as causative factors behind an epochal transformation. Scholars like V.K. Thakur 22 and R.N. Nandi 23 added supportive arguments to this thesis. They also showed, incidentally, that many of the old towns lost their position as centres of trade and administration but still thrived as centres of pilgrimage, 24 a point that comes to mind when we read the descriptions of Ujjayinī in Meghadūta above.
This is not to say that the urban decay thesis has been universally accepted by the world of scholarship. Scholars have raised objections to the theses of both Indian feudalism and urban decay. 25 But the unimpeachable archaeological evidence of the decay of urban centres cannot be disputed.
It needs no elaborate arguments to show that this urban decay of the age of the Guptas will explain what we saw in the poems of Kālidāsa. No serious scholar trained in historical method would say that the descriptions of cities in the poems—whether of the ‘prosperity’ of Alakā, Ujjayinī or Oṣadhiprastha, or the decay of Ayōdhya—have to be read as history. However, the former, with their lack of conviction and their stereotypical nature, on the one hand, and the latter, with its realistic nature, can be explained in better light against the background of the thesis of urban decay. The character of Ujjayinī as a pilgrim centre, with the temple of Mahākāla, falls into the pattern that Nandi and Thakur have shown. So also, a closer reading of the literary texts produced during this period will help us to take the discourse further.