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Abstract
The historic landscape of Orchha in Central India, once the capital of the Bundela Rajputs from 1531 to 1783 CE, was read as an oracle promising well-being and affording protection. Site readings and mappings of the landscape show that the built environment was visualized as a concrete embodiment of archetypal imagery of cosmic mountain and pillar, mandala and yantra, and sites of the epic Ramayana. Design strategies for envisioning, or reading this auspicious landscape, consisted of deliberate location and orientation of temples and palaces, interior surfaces as spaces of representation of narrative imagery, and spatial transposition. Today this visual structure is illegible due to abandonment, encroachment, and new development as a result of increasing number of pilgrims and tourists. Grounded speculation from site studies of the cultural landscape is proposed as the frame for reclaiming the lost heritage. Preserving view sheds and planning heritage trails will amplify the hidden visual structure of Orchha and suggest the reconciliation of myth and history.
Acknowledgements
The essay draws upon the site workshop conducted at Orchha in January 2012 followed by design studio in campus, and documented in Cultural Landscapes of Orchha: Reclaiming the Lost Heritage by Amita Sinha and D. Fairchild Ruggles with Neha Rajora, 2012, printed with support from Wadsworth Endowment to the Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Renarta Berta assisted in making the maps camera-ready. We thank David L. Hays for his incisive critique of the project and helpful suggestions in formulating the essay's theme.
Notes
1. The Bundelas ruled for over 500 years first at Mahoni and then at Garh Kundar before they built Orchha, ushering in an era of consolidation by acquiring new territories, building temples and palaces, and patronizing literary and performing arts. The territory they ruled in Central India came to be known as Bundelkhand with a distinct cultural identity in its language, customs, art, and architecture. Bundelas had a fraught relationship with the reigning Mughals who were their allies and adversaries at different times. The fragmentation of Bundela kingdom into many fiefdoms began after the death of their greatest ruler, Bir Singh Deo.
2. Heritage sites in the Indian subcontinent do not fit neatly into UNESCO's categories for World Heritage status designation—designed, organically evolved and associative cultural landscapes—that are purportedly a global framework for assessing heritage (Taylor and Altenburg Citation2006).
3. Oral history of Bundelas is largely legends of valor and piety, sung as ballads. The court poet Keshavdas wrote in vernacular Brajbhasha texts such as Ratnabhavani and Virsinghdevcharit in seventeenth century, idealized narratives of Bundela princes in which historic facts are embellished to extol and admonish (Busch Citation2005). They echoed the themes of epic literature celebrated in the visual culture of place murals and temple reliefs. Literary works and murals allude to Orchha's palace gardens, forests, and the river, but contain no factual descriptions and depictions of island citadel and settlement.
4. Radhika Bihari Temple is named after Krishna but that is likely a later appellation.
5. In the wall murals in Raja Mahal, Jahangir Mahal, Lakshminarayan, and Panchmukhi Temples, landscapes were not depicted as views, although the island-fort was painted, not quite realistically, showing roof top pavilions in palaces, enclosed by high citadel walls with bastions and fluted domes, chattris, jharokhas, and palanquin arches of Orchha palaces. Hunting scenes in Raja Mahal Durbar Hall—hunters killing deer and boars, tiger pouncing on a deer, falcons attacking peacocks, and fighting elephants—allude to the jungles around Orchha.
6. British Library: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/apacs/index.html
7. The visually distinctive elements of courtyard houses include otta—raised platform between the dwelling and the street; highly decorated entry doors painted blue with niches on either side; roof parapets with decorated jaali patterns; and whitewashed walls plastered with lime.
8. Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) initiated the first conservation plan for Orchha Heritage Zone in 2002. One hundred and sixty-five monuments distributed over six kilometers have been identified as deserving of protection. See Singh (Citation2004) for a brief summary of its objectives and the rationale for urban conservation.