Religion and Urban Waterscape in South Asia. Kankaria or the Ghāt Re-semanticised

Abstract

The ghāt, the stepped landing, is an iconic element of the urban waterscape in South Asia. In its multiple forms (river banks, stepwells, temple tanks etc.), steps to the water have been erected since the Harappan period. Against the seeming ahistoricity of this architectural form, the article discusses the changing meaning and practices around the ghāt. It reconstructs the evolution of the environment and spatiality of a ghāt-ed structure, thus showing how this religious environment influenced the urban landscape. The article is based on the historical and archaeological study of Kankaria lake, constructed 1451 by the Muzaffarid Sultan Qutb-ud-Din Shah, near Ahmedabad, one of the largest South Asian reservoirs of its time. It looks at its environment and spatial meanings in the long tradition of ghāt-ed reservoirs in Western India. In the Islamic context, leisure and paradise garden replaced ritual purity, just as modern municipalities today are re-inventing the meaning of the stepped lake. This article demonstrates the architectural continuity of the stone ghāt, against the cultural and religious change of meaning or re-semanticisation.