The interdisciplinary workshop “Accessing Water in the South Asian City” was organised by Sara Keller from the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations” (funded by the German Research Foundation, FOR 2779) as a hybrid event in Erfurt’s Augustinerkloster. The workshop approached South Asian urbanity via a discussion of how water has been organised discursively, materially, and symbolically in (pre-)modern Indian cities. Water has carried an essential religious dimension as a purifiactory element ever since the heterogeneous social and spatiotemporal formations commonly referred to as Hinduism and Buddhism emerged in South Asia. Studying water as a religious boundary marker of cleanness-pollution, sacredness-profanity, but also of social constellations, can provide insights into how the manifold socio-religious dynamics of Indian urban society have played themselves out over time. The workshop phrased out a series of intimately connected questions: how did the religious imaginaries and practices around water shape the materiality of pre-modern Indian cities? How did natural and material conditions like rainfall, seasons, and groundwater shape religious practices, texts and beliefs of water and its socio-religious administering? How can the influence of aspects linked to the urbanity of Indian cities – like density, diversity, differentiated lifestyles, spatial patterns of use, discourses on the city, and the breakdown all of these during war or social conflict – be best characterised?
The workshops was opened by a public keynote address by BERTRAND SAJALOLI (Orléans) who gave insights into his joint research with Etienne Grésillion (Paris) on attributions of sacredness to water around the globe. From baptismal fonts to holy rivers, Sajaloli illustrated how water has been the central natural element to religions throughout history, spatially mediating between believers and the divine. As a source of transcendental communication, water has been more closely linked to the sacred than for example mountains or forests, and this independently of its specific extant, movement, depth or volume. Sajaloli then turned to the influence wielded by this aquatic sacredness (and subsequent human harnessing of this) on urban lifestyles as well as the socio-religious fabric of cities. An environmental form promising access to the divine, water has emerged as a key environmental and religious factor in close-proximity human co-habitation.
Water in India is an element defined by its plurality and mercurial aspects: its appearance often strongly fluctuates depending on a region’s climate and season. It materialises as anything from persistent or sporadic rainfall, aquifer or source groundwater. Contributions to the workshop’s first panel “Inconsistent resources: Water as a determining factor of urbanity” addressed how cities and city dwellers have dealt with and were shaped by this aquatic volatility.
JULIA HEGEWALD (Bonn) opened with her investigation of how dependencies on water can differ profoundly and how correspondingly diverse architectures answered these diverse needs. The plurality of water dependency saw urban settlements on riverbanks combining infrastructural solutions of access, storage and distribution: dams, rainwater tanks, groundwater wells, or kundas (deep-step reservoirs), as well as hammams as spaces relying on and distributing water. Religious and social divisions as well are legible in water architecture: access could be restricted along lines of religious affiliation, gender and caste/profession. Today, in some religious architectures, the provision of pure water for religious use has somewhat receded behind social and leisure aspects thanks to the increased domestic access to piped water.
JUTTA JAIN-NEUBAUER (Bonn/Berlin) presented case studies from Northern and Western India with the aim of examining the dynamics of urbanisation and hydro-ecology in the Tughlaq Empire (14th-15th century). In her studies, she focused especially on periods of military, cultural and socio-economic transformation, discussing how water resources and infrastructures served multiple purposes like patronage, the consolidation of social cohesion and power structures, as well as being part of an elaborate religious system of differentiation.
SARA KELLER (Erfurt) introduced the results from the research into the epigraphical and architectural history of the Solanki waterscapes from the 10th to the 13th century in Western India, and demonstrated how applying Harvey’s theory of spatial fix heightens our understanding of water architecture in periods of transition and socio-economic crisis. The infrastructure along a purposely constructed road, and, donated by Solanki’s ruler Siddharaj Jaisinh and linking his capital Anhilvad-Patan with the temple city Somnath, not only provided access to water. Donating the road also fostered the localisation of an urban place and stabilised the territorial development of Solanki by providing an outlet for over-accumulated capital, which in turn also contextualises the structure’s intricate ornament and sheer size.
The workshop then moved on to discussing which role religious actors, institutions, imaginaries and practice played in providing access to water via not only architectural projects but also the material and spiritual administration in the cities.
Architectural heritage and the necessary cultural and technical knowledge linked to its restoration and re-use in everyday life, stood at the centre of AKIL AMIRALY’s (Paris) paper on rainwater cisterns in Ahmedabad, Western India. Basing himself on household surveys following the structural restoration of the cisterns, he showed that different sections of the city’s society vary greatly in their knowing, relying and valuing the rainwater system. The architectural renovation and classification as cultural heritage of the traditional rainwater cistern has led, in some parts of Ahmedabad, to local knowledge of the systems being reactivated. This, however, has not led to rainwater harvesting being commonly recognised as beneficial, desirable or in keeping with the present-day.
JULIA SHAW (London) analysed the various strategies of managing water exhibited by religious Buddhist institutions in their aim of satisfying the plurality of specific needs and diversity of (groups of) water users in urban settlements. Concentrating on the administration of waterscapes in early India, she discussed the emergence and development of religious donations (dāna), maintenance tools, and practices of distribution as well as their roles in pre-modern Indian urbanity.
For a related contribution on pre-modern water systems, PADMA SUNDER JOSHI (Kathmandu) highlighted the Hiti system of the Kathmandu valley. Hiti, or water sprouts drawing their water from aquifers through pipes and ponds, tend to be considered similarly “outdated” like the Ahmedabad rainwater cisterns. The Hiti water sprouts portray their essential religious function and formation in elaborate depictions of water spirits. Joshi contextualized these with regard to the technical infrastructure underpinning as well as social aspects in Hiti, for example the manifold religious festivals, rituals and celebrations closely tied to the maintenance of the system.
NICOLAS MORELLE (Metz) presented his work on water dams and fortifications in the Deccan region, specifically the archeological results from Naldurg fort in Maharashta. Apart from its military properties, e.g. as water filled ditches beneath the fort, the water architecture of the dam and its offshoots became a key feature in the recreation of elites (pleasure gardens), in the agricultural food production in this semi-arid region, and as a tool of political and social control. Morelle also stressed the link between the water infrastructure of Deccan forts and the previous influx of knowledge and techniques following Turkish conquests and Iranian influence.
Working in the water landscape of Vadodara in Western India, PRAKHAR VIDYARTHI (Vadodara) showed how Navnath temples pre-dating the Gujarat sultanate and Gaekwad period where placed surrounding the city and thought to thus secure its protection. Based on a building archaeological study, Vidyarthi sketched the changing topography of the river in relation to the temples and the growing city of Vadodara, which increasingly encroached on smaller water catchment areas and river tributaries.
Lastly, the contributions to the third panel focused on how urban populations experienced restrictions of water access and how such restrictions reflected and/or shaped cultural and normative practices and discourses of the time. HEATHER O’LEARY (Tampa) demonstrated the conditions, degree and social environment of water exchange among inhabitants of contemporary slum or basti communities, in this case of Delhi. She elaborated on how exchanging water among marginalized, informal communities carries with it conceptions of righteousness, how infringements are dealt with and how essential water qualities are restored in their aftermath.
The open-air water reservoirs, at times referred to as “tanks”, of the Tamil Nadu region stood at the heart of LAURA VERDELLI’s (Tours) contribution from the field of architecture and spatial planning. Originating in the second century BCE, the system of storing and distributing rainwater for and in the dry season included a variety of practices, knowledge and actors. Based on interviews, Verdelli showed how, in the past decades, the number of tanks, and the related knowledge and social relations, has significantly decreased especially in areas of urban growth and urbanisation. Tanks with their multifaceted religious, social and agricultural resources of water have been supplanted by modern tap water and the new inequalities of access and environmental consequences this entails.
VRUSHTI MAWANI (Vancouver) took a closer look at how urban planning and uneven water access reflect tendencies of marginalization/differentiation in the context of competing and conflicting local religious politics, here Hindu and Muslim ones. Mawani highlighted how conceptions of legality/illegality, state/non-state, formal/informal and religious difference shaped the material, discursive, political and planning actions and responses of local actors in relation to the predominantly Muslim wards of the city of Ahmedabad.
Attended by international scholars, the workshop was structured around three working groups (one in Erfurt, two online), which each discussed the three panels and their pre-circulated contributions. A joint presentation of results followed the non-public working group. The program concluded with two public discussions: “Sources and methodology”, chaired by SUSANNE RAU (Erfurt), and “Themes: Overlaps, gaps, perspectives”, chaired by MARTIN FUCHS (Erfurt). During the workshop discussions, the potential of water and waterscapes for enlightening the deep histories of Indian urban and religious life played itself out beautifully. Intrinsic to this potential are the variegated dimensions of climate, geography and season, religious practice as well as the ingenuity of human co-habitation. The diversity of water uses, and specific demands to access and essential qualities have led to a continuous (re-)negotiation of water management and infrastructure across religious cultures, states of war and peace, and economic transformation. In this light, attempts of limiting water histories to ethno-nationalist narrations must be considered the academic equivalent of a cul-de-sac. The torrential rain during the workshop and shortly afterwards in other parts of Germany demonstrated poignantly that the workshop topic – how (urban) people have lived with, managed and understood different types of water – is of trans-epochal and trans-regional relevance to everyday life, especially in the ongoing climate crisis.
Conference Overview:
Welcome note
Sara Keller (Erfurt)
Keynote address
Bertrand Sajaloli (Orléans): Water and the sacred: which spatial mediations? (joint contribution by Bertrand Sajaloli (Orléans) and Etienne Grésillon (Paris).
Group work on Panel I: Inconsistent resources. Water as a determining factor of urbanity
Group work on Panel II: Providing access. Religion as agent of water availability / Infrastructural solutions and their limitations
Group work on Panel III: Restricting access. Cultural and normative deficiencies / Impact of social and religious context
Excursion at the Petersberg and its medieval water system
Short presentation of the papers
Presentation of group work results
Discussion 1: Sources and methodology
Chair: Susanne Rau (Erfurt)
Discussion 2: Themes: overlapping, gaps, perspectives
Chair: Martin Fuchs (Erfurt)