In the Name of Krishna: The Cultural Landscape of a North Indian Pilgrimage Town A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sugata Ray IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Frederick M. Asher, Advisor April 2012 © Sugata Ray 2012 Acknowledgements They say writing a dissertation is a lonely and arduous task. But, I am fortunate to have found friends, colleagues, and mentors who have inspired me to make this laborious task far from arduous. It was Frederick M. Asher, my advisor, who inspired me to turn to places where art historians do not usually venture. The temple city of Khajuraho is not just the exquisite 11th-century temples at the site. Rather, the 11th-century temples are part of a larger visuality that extends to contemporary civic monuments in the city center, Rick suggested in the first class that I took with him. I learnt to move across time and space. To understand modern Vrindavan, one would have to look at its Mughal past; to understand temple architecture, one would have to look for rebellions in the colonial archive. Catherine B. Asher gave me the gift of the Mughal world – a world that I only barely knew before I met her. Today, I speak of the Islamicate world of colonial Vrindavan. Cathy walked me through Mughal mosques, tombs, and gardens on many cold wintry days in Minneapolis and on a hot summer day in Sasaram, Bihar. The Islamicate Krishna in my dissertation thus came into being. Ajay Skaria taught me that the modern was never truly modern. Even as we argued over the genealogies of the modern, of reason, and of the secular, I learnt to think religion with Ajay. How can one think religion today? After Ayodhya and Gujarat. With Gandhi and Kierkegaard, Ajay said. If Hybrid Histories provided a possibility of the modern that was never truly modern, another thinking of religion emerged from innumerable conversations with Ajay over the last eight years. i I first met Ritu Bhatt when I intrepidly walked into the School of Architecture, University of Minnesota in 2005 to take a course with her. Over the next few years, I learnt with Ritu that space was not just space and architecture not merely concrete and mortar. I learnt Architext, Henri Lefebvre, and Jane Jacobs. I learnt to see the colonial city anew. Yet, there is the body – the messiness of everyday practices that evades the archive, Jane Blocker reminded me after I returned from India with boxes full of colonial reports and court proceedings carefully culled out of the state’s archives. My dissertation could not do justice to that leap of faith that Jane urged me to take. My only consolation is that the project will take on a new life after the dissertation. This dissertation, however, would have been impossible without generous support from the Department of Art History, University of Minnesota; the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota; the Junior Research Fellowship, American Institute of Indian Studies; and the International Dissertation Research Fellowship, Social Science Research Council. In India, Purnima Mehta, along with the staff of the American Institute of Indian Studies, miraculously opened doors that seemed impenetrable. From finding research assistants to letters of introduction, the AIIS made research in India that much easier. In Vrindavan, Shrivatsa Goswami graciously offered me a home at the Shri Chaitanya Prem Sansthan. I spent months at his guesthouse overlooking the river Yamuna. His staff was forever friendly, giving me advice, suggestions, and local histories. Shrivatsa Goswami himself introduced me to the complex world of pre-colonial theological texts. Archivists and librarians at the Vrindavan Research Institute, the ii Vrindavan Municipal Board, the Mathura Nagar Palika Parishad, and the Mathura Museum were equally kind – unwearyingly pulling out dusty reports from the depths of the archive. There were others in Vrindavan – pilgrims, priests, and local shopkeepers – who took time to talk to me, letting me enter their temples, their homes, their worlds, their devotion. Gently smiling as my obtrusive camera and recording devices disrupted their daily life, they patiently spoke about love for their beloved Krishna. Much of my archival research was conducted at the National Archives, the Archaeological Survey of India Records Room, and the Central Secretariat Library in New Delhi; the National Library and the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Calcutta; the Uttar Pradesh State Archives in Lucknow; the Uttar Pradesh Regional Archive in Agra; the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Arabic and Persian Research Institute in Tonk; and the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections at the British Library in London. I am thankful to the staff at these institutions for their cooperation. Shilpa Shah in Surat, Amit Ambalal in Ahmedabad, and Siddharth Tagore in New Delhi generously shared their private collection with me. Conversations at conferences, over coffee, and emails with Pika Ghosh, Kumkum Chatterjee, Sandria Freitag, Rebecca Brown, Saloni Mathur, Alka Patel, Tamara Sears, and Christopher Pinney, among others, shaped the ideas that frame much of my dissertation. I am grateful for their time. In India, it was Parul Dave-Mukherji, Shivaji Panikkar, and Tapati Guha-Thakurta who set me thinking about Art History, first at the Department of Art History and Aesthetics, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and then at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. They taught me to think iii postcolonial Art History. What began in Baroda in 2000 culminated in Minneapolis in 2012. A long journey indeed. But, the journey began much before. With my parents, Krishna Ray and Bejoy Chakraborty. My sister, Panchali Ray. My extended family, Swapan Gupta and Tapati Gupta. They suffered, without complaint, when I insisted that family holidays were field trips to a few more temples. They suffered, without complaint, when I steered every dinner conversation to Vrindavan and its temples. They suffered, without complaint, when I abandoned early 20th-century moth-eaten devotional lithographs in their apartments for years. But that is the burden of having an art historian as a son and a brother! I can only sympathize. Somewhere along the way, I met Atreyee Gupta. Together, we traveled the road. 2012 marks ten years of this journey. How else can I commemorate the last ten years but by saying this dissertation is for you, this dissertation is with you. iv For Mahant Laldas, former chief priest of the Ramjanmabhumi Temple, Ayodhya, who was murdered for opposing the demolition of the Babri mosque, who reminds us of a Hinduism that could be. v Table of Contents List of Maps vii List of Illustrations viii Note on Transliteration xv Introduction 1 Part I: The Body Politic in a North Indian Pilgrimage Town: Pre-colonial Vrindavan 45 1. The Two Bodies of Krishna 2. Imagining Loss: The Govind Dev temple (1590) 3. Towards an 18th-century Vaishnava architecture Part II: The Tactics of the Everyday: Making Space in 19th-century Vrindavan 104 4. Claiming the Nagara: The Krishna Chandrama temple (1810) 5. Of Renegade Kings and Cows in the early 19th century 6. The Islamicate in Vrindavan: The Shahji temple (1868) 7. Of Roads and Maps: (Re)making “State Space” 8. The Spatial Techniques of 19th-century Vaishnavism 9. Cow Protection in the Era of Colonial Nationalism Coda 262 10. Imagining Space: Remaking Vrindavan in the 20th century Maps 277 Illustrations 279 Bibliography 341 vi List of Maps Map 1 Map of Braj Reproduced from Rājaśekhara Dāsa Brahmacārī, The Complete Guide to Vṛndāvana: India’s Most Holy City of Over 5,000 Temples (New Delhi: Vedanta Visions Publications, 2000), 4. 277 Map 2 Map of Vrindavan Reproduced from Survey of India, Mathura Guide Map 1:20,000, 1974 278 vii List of Illustrations All illustrations and photographs by author, unless otherwise noted. 1.1 Govind Dev temple, Vrindavan, 1590 (See Figure 1.3 for interior view) 279 1.2 Diwan-i Khass (Private Audience Hall), Fatehpur Sikri palace complex, Agra, ca. 16th century 279 1.3 Interior, Govind Dev temple, Vrindavan, 1590 (See Figure 1.1 for exterior view) 280 1.4 Madanmohan temple, Vrindavan, ca. 1580 281 1.5 Gopinath temple, Vrindavan, ca. 1580-1585 282 1.6 Jugal Kishore temple, Vrindavan, 1627 283 1.7 Artist Unknown, Raja Worshipping Krishna, Bilaspur, ca. 1680, Opaque watercolor on paper, 23 X 17 cm. Repository: Jagdish and Kamala Mittal Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad 76.235. Reproduced from Vishakha N. Desai, Life at Court: Art for India’s Rulers, 16th-19th Centuries (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1985), 99. 284 1.8 Artist Unknown, Radha and Krishna, Guler, ca. 1760-1770, Opaque watercolor on paper, 22.4 X 17.4 cm. Repository: Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati. Reproduced from Daniel S. Walker and Ellen S. Smart, Pride of the Princes: Indian Art of the Mughal Era in the Cincinnati Art Museum (Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 1985), Plate 52. 285 1.9 Artist Unknown, Pichhwai for Gosainji Ka Utsava [Birthday of Vitthalnatha], Nathadwara, ca. 1830, Cotton painted with pigments and gold, 186 X 148 cm. Repository: Tapi Collection, Surat TAPI 02.31. 286 1.10 Bichitr, Shah Jahan Receiving His Three Eldest Sons Asaf Khan During His Accession Ceremonies, ca. 1630, Watercolor on paper, 81.5 X 101.5 cm. Repository: Royal Library, Windsor Castle Folio 50 B from the Pādshāhnāma RCIN 1005025.k-l. Reproduced from Milo C. Beach, Ebba Koch, and Wheeler Thackston, eds. King of the World: The Padshahnama: An Imperial Mughal Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle (London: Azimuth Editions; Washington, DC: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 1997), 10. 287 1.11 Jharoka in the Diwan-i ‘Amm (Public Audience Hall), Agra Fort, Agra, ca.