La metropoli indiana: modelli, narrazioni, rappresentazioni

The paper analyzes various narratives on the origin and development of Indian cities. Drawing from narratological theories, and using methodological tools elaborated thereof, it starts by examining terms and passages of the Vedas – ancient corpus of ritual texts – arguing that the nomadic characterization that they seem to attribute to the Vedic civilization should be interpreted mainly as an identitarian construction. A similar procedure is applied to the narrations collected in the epic poem Rāmāyaṇa, whose identitarian nature is function of the establishment of a ‘modern’ civilization – at the same time urban and agrarian – based on three interconnected hegemonies: of monarchy in the political sphere, of Brahmanical caste in the ritual and religious domain, and of plough agriculture among the economic activities. Within this civilizational pattern, the urban model of the city Ayodhyā was instituted as well, which was bound to influence the origin and the development of many other Indian cities. Thus, in the following part of the study, both historical cities such as Mathurā or Sāketa, and fictional urban centres such as those described in Sūfī medieval poems in Avadhī, are in turn compared with features portrayed in the Rāmāyaṇa, in order to show how the ‘Ayodhyā model’ continued to be implemented through the centuries until the beginning of the colonial period. Identitarian narratives sustained also the foundation of, and the consolidation of power in, the medieval imperial city of Vijayanagara, which, though depicted in coeval and later sources as a stronghold of Hindu religion and culture, was in fact deeply influenced by the culture, the economy and the military organization of the bordering Islamic states – while the organization of religious institutions such as temples and pilgrimage centres was mainly function of the state economy and local political relations. Finally, instances of narratives regarding modern and contemporary Indian metropolises are presented, arguing that the ‘urban bias’ that characterizes contemporary Indian social and political discourses could be considered at least partially as the aftermath of colonial rule.