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Chapter Seven The Symbolic Organization of Space
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Status and Space: Concentric Circles

It is convenient to introduce in this chapter aspects of the urban spatial distribution of some of the thar s and status levels (see fig. 7). Only a portion of this distribution is directly related to the urban symbolic order in our present sense, the greatest part being closely related to aspects of economic function, to communication and transportation, to


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Figure 7.
The Royal center. Statue of King Bhupatindra[*] Malla in Laeku Square.


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relations of power, to the special needs of the old court, and to historical "accident," thus reflecting other kinds of meaning.

In his study of the classic Indian treatises on town planning, Dutt (1925) notes the planned "segregation of the classes following different pursuits. . . . Every ward was set apart for a caste or trade guild . . . which enjoyed an autonomy of its own" (1923, 147). In some classic texts, such as Kautilya's[*] , detailed prescriptions are set out for the location of many occupational specialites and castes, as well as the location of royal kitchens, elephant stables, water reservoirs, camel stables, and so on (Dutt 1925, 149f.).[15] But, as Dutt points out, in cities, because of the larger scale and because "corporate life connotes manifold needs and responsibilities and consequently necessitates interdependence and inter-communication," various areas or sites were subdivided to have a representation of occupations, and became "a prototype of the whole city on a smaller scale." And, he adds, in a suggestion connected with our interpretation (above) of the city's halves, "This admixture and congregation of classes came as a remedial measure against possible accentuation of class differences" (1925, 148). We have argued that the city halves are such city prototypes in Bhaktapur, as are, to some degree, the twa: s, which we will discuss in the next section.

Although many of the thars are widely distributed through the city according to the kinds of functional principles suggested above, the arrangement of certain symbolically important groups has the kind of idealized mythic arrangement characteristic of marked symbolic space. When these thars are considered—the king and his associates, Brahmans, farmers as a group, butchers, and untouchables—a geometrically idealized Bhaktapur is organized in a series of concentric circles from a center out, and at the same time, as it is built on a hill, from top down. At the center of high status is the palace of the Malla kings, and the temple of the Malla kings' lineage deity, the supreme political goddess of Bhaktapur, Taleju. Just to the south of the palace, but also centrally located is a major concentration of Rajopadhyaya Brahmans (map 6), including those families who were the king's and his goddess' special priests. Intermingled in central residence with the Brahmans, but filling a still larger segment of the city are the Chathar and Pa(n)cthar groups of thar s (map 7), formerly royal officials and suppliers. Still more peripheral from the center are the various farming thar s, the Jyapus (map 8), who fill most of the city's area except for the Brahmans' area and those portions of the Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya area adjoining the east-west road, the city's bazaar, where the Chathariya and Pa(n)c-


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Map 7.
Space and status. The area of settlement of Chathar and Pa(n)cthar households. They occupy the city's central sector. Com-
pare the distribution of Jyapus in map 8. Map courtesy of Niels Gutschow.


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Map 8.
Space and status. Jyapu household. These households overlap the Chathar and Pa(n)cthar areas to some degree but are most
densely situated in the areas of the city peripheral to those settlements. Map courtesy of Niels Gutschow.


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Map 9.
Space and status. Butcher households. The households of the Naes (butchers) are located along the edges of the built-up area
of the city. They are conceived to be within the symbolic boundaries of the city. Map courtesy of Niels Gutschow.


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thariya have their shops and, often, adjoining houses. At the very periphery of the farmers' area, and forming a ring around the outer extremes of the city, are the houses of the butchers (map 9). Finally, outside the city to the inauspicious south, live the untouchable sweepers, the Po(n)s (map 4, above).

The hill on which Bhaktapur is built has a broad plateau at its summit with no visible distinctly highest spot. The Malla palace and Taleju temple are situated on a plateau that is bordered by slopes that gradually descend some twenty meters to meet the fields outside the boundaries. This slope adds a dimension of top-down to the imagery of central to peripheral. The highest spot of the plateau at 1,339.8 meters (slightly higher than the site of the palace at 1,335 meters) lies just to the west of the Tripurasundari pitha , the central mandalic[*] shrine, and during the twelfth to sixteenth centuries was apparently part of the site of the large Newar Royal Palace compound of the day, Tripura (Slusser 1982, vol. I, p. 204). At that time the highest point in the city was, in fact, within the royal precincts.[16]

Detailed maps of the location of the various craft thar s, which are ranked in the lower segments of the Jyapu and below, made by Guts-chow and his associates (Gutschow 1975; Gutschow and Kölver 1975), show the occupational castes distributed in various ways, generally throughout the city, except for the central area, the area of the palace, the main Brahman cluster, and the central portion of the Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya settlements. The craftsman areas are in the outer portions of the Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya areas and throughout the area of Jyapu settlement. The number of settlements of any one thar vary. The Chipas or dyers, for example, have only one settlement, but other professional thar groups have several. The Kumha:s, potters, for example, have one large settlement in the south, and two in the northeast of the city. The oil pressers, or Sa:mis, have four dusters, two toward the east, and two toward the west. The barbers, or Naus, live in six clusters throughout the city. The house masons, the Awa:s, have three settlements, one to the west, and two to the northeast. The Jugis live (map 10) in an irregular pattern with some central clustering within the city, cutting into and intermingling with the Chathariya, Pa(n)cthariya, and farmers' areas. This inner location of the Jugis is in striking contrast with what might have been expected in the status gradient from center to periphery signaled and created by the arrangement of the most centrally important thar s in the city hierarchy, and in marked contrast to the external position of the Po(n)s, who along with the Jugis are


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Map 10.
Space and status. Jugi households. In marked contrast to the Naes and the Po(n)s, the Jugis are distributed throughout the
city. They are the city's internal absorbers of pollution (chap. 10). Map courtesy of Niels Gutschow.


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the central foci of ideas regarding pollution (chaps. 5 and 11). The position of the Jugis, as we will see, seems closely related to aspects of their significance in the city order.

In contrast with the other spatial features discussed in this chapter, the center-to-periphery, top-to-bottom, arrangements of status are not used or emphasized in the course of the city's symbolic enactments. The royal center is a focus in the city's two major festival sequences (Mohani and Biska:) and the untouchables' quarter has occasional symbolic representations, but the overall spatial status arrangements, insofar as they do reflect a symbolic order, are not given further representation.


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