In Imagining the Urban: Sanskrit and the City in Early India, Shonaleeka Kaul draws on a body of Sanskrit literature, known as the k?vyas, to create a vibrant picture of ancient Indian urbanism. Because physical space and geographic place are important elements in the k?vyas, and most k?vyas focus on urban themes, these texts prove to be rich resources on urbanism in early India. Kaul explores the physical, psychological, political, and socio-cultural dimensions of the urban, as portrayed in this literature, to develop a holistic image of the ancient Indian city.
The body of work under consideration comprises over two dozen k?vyas from the first millennium CE, an era that, according to Kaul, represents the highest achievement in the genre. Her texts include Sanskrit poetry, drama, tale, and biography along with the two great epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Kaul also employs normative Sanskrit texts—technical treatises, scripture, epigraphs, and historical writings—to contextualize, contrast, and reinforce the vision of the city she draws from the k?vyas.
Historicizing the ancient Indian city through its creative and narrative literature is a novel approach, in line with Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock’s recent call for academics in South Asian literature to learn “to think in a historical-anthropological spirit” (2003:14). Recent historiography of early life in India, however, has been overwhelmingly dependent on the archeological record. Furthermore, urban descriptions in the k?vyas have not traditionally been understood as corresponding to the actual world (Pollock 2003:51) and are often dismissed as stereotypical and formulaic. In her introduction (and in appendix 2) Kaul validates her approach by pointing out significant gaps in the Indian archeological record and corroborating her data with the existing archeological and art-material evidence. She also upends the critique of k?vya urban descriptions as being stock devices, instead suggesting that consistencies found in these texts reveal “universalized essences of the experience of urbanism” (italics in the original, 32) pervading Sanskrit cosmopolitan culture.
In the first two chapters, Kaul creates a vision of the early city beginning at its outer limits and working inwards. She details structural elements described in the k?vyas (such as the city wall, moats, ramparts, residences, and palace) and finds these in accord with friezes, archeological evidence, and the normative literature. Moving beyond physical description, into areas of cognition and psychological orientation, Kaul’s approach distinguishes itself. For example, in treatises such as the Artha??stra and Mayamata the palace or ceremonial center is considered the nucleus of a city. In contrast, Kaul’s reading of the k?vyas suggests that the royal road is the most important locale. Such a change in perspective has broad implications for determining the orientation of the urban landscape; instead of a city focused on a central, static hub, the prominence of the royal road indicates the importance of flow—in, out, and around the city—along an axis connecting multiple sites of importance.
Kaul moves from the physical layout of the city to socio-cultural themes of gender and social order. In chapters 3 and 4, she again goes beyond what the normative texts tell us about urban characters. For example, in the k?vyas an ascetic (typically characterized in treatises as otherworldly and austere) may play the role of liaison de amour or spy, and a Brahmin may be “illiterate, agnostic, cowardly, clumsy, [and] lazy” (171). Kaul sees these departures from traditional concepts as lampoons of authority, authorial commentaries, and at times—such as the case of the deceitful ascetic—as an expression of a particular urban ethos pervading the k?vyas.
Kaul terms this overarching urban ethos, “kama culture,” which she defines as “the city as the center of an ethic of pleasure” (195). While the civilized pursuit of pleasure is a primary urban concern, kama culture operates alongside other important themes, such as the pursuit of dharma and moral uprightness in the face of adversity. That these seemingly contradictory currents coexist indicates a diverse and multi-dimensional urban culture. This image of diversity is amplified in Kaul’s “sensorial map of the city” (115), which she draws from the variety of sights, sounds, and smells described in the k?vyas. These rich “–scapes” further Kaul’s contention that early Indian cities were extremely heterogeneous and fluid spaces in which, contrary to prescriptions in the normative texts, wealth was more a determinate of social status than caste or ethnicity.
In the final two chapters of Imagining the Urban, Kaul analyzes the dominant themes of urban thought and behavior in the k?vyas and situates them in the larger context of cultural values, especially in relation to the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. What emerges is a multi-faceted picture of dynamic urbanism thriving across the cosmopolitan spaces of the Sanskrit world. In Kaul’s reading of the k?vyas, the clear-cut prescriptions of the treatises—in terms of city layout, social ordering, individual attitudes, morality, and so forth—are problematized; and the archeological and art-material evidence become departure points for exploring a complex and vivid urban environment.
In her preface, Kaul tells us that her fascination with early Indian cities began during her teenage years. Her intimate relationship with the materials is reflected in the enthusiasm and care with which she makes her case. Even an unfamiliar reader will likely be drawn in by Kaul’s presentation. The inclusion of normative Sanskrit texts broadens the appeal of Kaul’s book for specialists in other areas of South Asian studies as does her analysis of the courtesan, caste, gender, and sexuality. In Imagining the Urban, Kaul treads new ground with conviction and convincing scholarship that, I believe, opens the door for new approaches to understanding early cultures.
WORKS CITED
Pollock, Sheldon, ed. 2003. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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[Review length: 938 words • Review posted on September 7, 2011]