The Village in the City, The Twa:

Binode Dutt ([1925] 1977, 147) wrote that in traditional Hindu city planning the main streets or Rajapathas of the city divided it into a set of "wards," called grama s. In some traditional towns "the same caste or people of the same profession were congregated in the same ward. . . . Every ward was set apart for a caste or trade guild of note which enjoyed an autonomy of its own" (ibid., 147). In other (according to Dutt, larger) towns or cities, as we have noted, these "wards" were the sites that contained a mixed, and, in part, functionally integrated, selection of "castes" and occupational groups, and which were "prototype[s] of the whole city on a smaller scale." "Grama " is a common Sanskrit term for village^[17] and is the term for village in Nepali. In some traditional town plans the grama s were assigned to, and named after, different presiding deities (ibid., 143). These urban grama units are called twa: in Bhaktapur Newari (twa: in Kathmandu Newari and tol^[*] in Nepali).^[18]

Gutschow and Kölver (1975), like Dutt, call these units "wards." As they note, this is a somewhat ambiguous terminology as Bhaktapur has recently been divided into seventeen "wards" for modern administrative purposes by the central government. These wards do not correspond to the twa: divisions. The problem of English nomenclature comes in part from a problem in using the tempting gloss "neighborhood," in that some of the major twa:s are further subdivided into smaller areas, also called "twa:s " (when the context is clear) which are clearly neighborhoods. When a contrast with these smaller units is needed in Newari discourse the term matwa: is used for the large and major twa: s, the

prefix ma deriving from the trunk of a tree of which the smaller neighborhood twa: s are branches.

Bhaktapur is always said to have twenty-four major twa: s,^[19] and these have various ritual representations. These have probably shifted somewhat over time through splitting and coalescing, but our map (map 11) is a close approximation to the traditional matwa: s. Accepting the traditional number of twenty-four matwa: s, an average twa: would consist of about 270 households and about 1,600 people. It is perhaps significant that these numbers are equal to the median population of Kathmandu Valley Newar towns or "compact settlements" (His Majesty's Government, Nepal 1969, 81). The average number of houses in a twa: also happens to fall within the range given in classical definitions of a grama . Kautilya^[*] gave a range of between 100 and 500 houses as defining a grama (Slusser 1982, vol. 1, p. 84). However, in comparison with classical grama s, which were distributed over a large area, the Mauryan grama , having an area of from two to four square miles,^[20] the otherwise analogous twa: s of the Newar cities are compressed into densities more than ten times more compact.

As Auer and Gutschow have pointed out, if one asks a Bhaktapur Newar where he lives he often answers with the name of his twa: . This is one of the important loci of his identification. There is a well-known Newar saying: "If the household is in proper order, the twa: can be 'frightened off' (khyaegu ); if the city is in proper order, the country can be 'frightened off.'" "Khyaegu ," "frighten off," has the sense of chasing away a cow that enters a field, or an intruder into a courtyard. In these successively inclusive units, whose boundaries must be protected at each level, the twa: takes its important place between the household and the city.

Gutschow and Kölver (1975, 26) described some of the general characteristics of Bhaktapur's twa: s:

As a rule, a . . . [twa: ] will be centered around a spacious square. This is usually paved and serves various agricultural and commercial purposes: during and after harvest, it is a threshing floor, a space for winnowing grain, for drying rice and certain other vegetables. . . . In potters' wards, unbaked jars or pots are placed there for drying. Women will here prepare the warp before weaving. Almost all squares are hemmed in by arcades, where people will congregate in the evening for various social purposes. . . . In most wards, the central square has a well. A temple or shrine to Ganesa^[*] [is] found in every ward.

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Map 11.
The village in the city. The major twa:s. Note that the boundary between the upper and lower cities follows twa: boundaries.
The main east-west thoroughfare and bazaar street bisects the city. The city's festival route (see map 12) runs through all of these twa:s
except the most westerly one, Bharbaco. The numbers on the maps refer to the following twa:s: (1) Bharbaco, (2) Itache(n), (3)
Tekhaco, (4) Khauma, (5) Ma(n)galache(n), (6) Laskudoka^[*] , (7) Bolache(n), (8) Lakulache(n), (9) Ta:marhi , (10) Kwache(n), (11)
Yalache(n), (12) Tulache(n), (13) Tibukche(n), (14) Coche(n), (15) Yache(n), (16) Gwa:mharhi, (17) Bholache(n), (18) Thalache(n),
(19) Tachapal, (20) Inaco, (21) Kwathandu^[*] , (22) Gache(n), (23) Taulache(n), and (24) Je(n)la. Map courtesy of Niels Gutschow.

They note that the "wards" usually have their own shrine of the deity Nasadya: (chap. 8) and often one of Visnu^[*] , but these are secondary in their specific importance to the twa: to its Ganesa^[*] shrine. Gutschow and Kölver's mention of the "potter's ward" reflects the fact that although all twa: s have at least some mixed occupational and status membership, one group may dominate the twa: numerically, and may sometimes give it a local flavor and identity.

Twa: s vary not only in the details of their membership, but sometimes in identifiable aspects of their spoken language, and, in popular conception at least, in the behavioral style of their members, their "manners" (cf. D. R. Regmi, 1965, part II, p. 554). Twa: s, or their major segments, are the face-to-face communities beyond the extended family where people know each other personally and where mutual observation and gossip are important sanctions. It is here that children's play with nonfamily children and adult associations with non-phuki members provide the ground for the considerations of mutuality and equality and for judgments on personal qualities that compete with or influence hierarchical orientations. The reason that the household must be organized to chase off the twa: , as the saying puts it, is that the twa: , or one of its neighborhood subdivisions, is the place where individual or family misbehaviors are likely to be first known and of considerable interest and where family reputation, or "face," ijjat , is at risk.

The twa: is continuously represented for its inhabitants in symbolic actions. Like most units in the city (as we will discuss in the chapters on calendrical events), the twa: is sometimes represented as a significant locus for action, as a maximal unit in itself, and sometimes in a kind of "parallel" representation as one of a set of similar units that are all doing the same thing at the same time or in sequence, and thus indicate their equivalence as categories and, at the same time, their significance as units constituting the city. The most salient inner representation is the twa: 's central shrine of Ganesa^[*] . Ganesa^[*] must be worshiped as a preliminary to all important household ceremonies and all rites of passage. Some twa: s also have a special protective deity in addition to their central Ganesa^[*] . This may be Bhairava or a form of the Dangerous Goddess. In some twa: s the protective goddess is worshiped once a year, and carried on the processional route of the twa: (chap. 13).

Twa: s have some ordered relationships to the larger city. We may recall Oldfield's report that the number of gates in the old Newar city walls "corresponded exactly with the number of squares (toles) within

the city, . . . each gateway being associated with a particular square, and placed under the municipal control of the same local authorities, who were as much responsible for the repairs and defense of the gateway as they were for the general management of the square" (Oldfield [1880] 1974, vol. 1, p. 95f., original parenthesis). We have also noted Guts-chow and Kölver's observation that each twa: has its prescribed route for carrying corpses to the cremation ground (1975, p. 27).

The twenty-four twa: s are represented together as constituative elements of the city in one of the climactic events of the annual festival cycle—the sacrifice of twenty-four male buffaloes to the Goddess at the Taleju temple during the autumn harvest festival of Mohani. Most of the central twa: squares are also in their proper annual turn the site for the ritual dance-drama of the Nine Durgas, the possessed dancers, whose movements during nine months through Bhaktapur each year are considered by many to be Bhaktapur's most important symbolic performances (chap. 15). These twa: -based dramas deliver, as we will argue, some of the city's most powerful messages about the proper moral integration of individuals into the ordered life of the city.