The City As An Icon of A God
Bhaktapur, as we have noted in our discussion of its history, grew through time in conformance with the limits of early settlements and of topographic constraints. As attempts were made to organize its space as a symbolic resource, it was necessary to deal with hard and resistant forms and forces. The forms that resulted from the interactions of planning and what was—from the viewpoint of an ideal symbolic order—accident or constraint could be coerced into that order in various ways. An existent form might be discovered to have a direct, iconic resemblance to something of transcendent significance; approximate relationships could be abstracted and transformed imaginatively into ideal geometric forms or iconic representations.
The inhabitants of Bhaktapur were thus able to imagine its irregularly ovoid shape as a direct representation of something significant, while at the same time, as we shall see, for other and more important purposes they conceived that shape as a perfect circle. In the eighteenth century Kirkpatrick wrote that Newars described Bhaktapur as resembling "the Dumbroo, or guitar, of Mahadeo" ([1811] 1969, 163). The "dumbroo" was undoubtedly the damaru[*] , the hourglass-shaped drum of Siva. Oldfield, writing of the Nepal Valley m the 1850s, said that Kathmandu, according to Buddhist Newars, was built to resemble the sword of its founder in Buddhist legend, Manjusri, while according to Hindus it resembled the sword of Devi ([1880] 1974, vol. 1, p. 101). Patan, a largely Buddhist city, was said to resemble the wheel of Buddha (vol. I, p. 117), while Bhaktapur (vol. I, p. 131) was said now to represent the conch of Visnu[*] , which is what many present inhabitants still say.
In the case of Bhaktapur (and as far as we know the same is true for the other Newar cities), such iconic images that connect the cities to gods have no ritual or doctrinal significance at all. In contrast to the geometrically regular idealized spaces of the city, they are not used in any way in the actions and elaborations of meanings that constitute the symbolic order of the city. The identification of Bhaktapur's shape with Visnu[*] has no present significance. The city is sometimes thought of as Siva's, sometimes Parvati's, sometimes the Tantric Goddess's, but never Visnu's[*] city.
Figure 6.
Ceremonial bathing m the Hanumante River.