Part 2 - Crystallization and hierarchy of Vārāṇasī

The basic life pattern of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic phase was described by Dilip K. Chakrabarti as the “newly emergent village India of the third and second millennia BC.” Basic feature distinguished by him was creation of a rural-agricultural base. Existence of large scale pottery, stone tools, small amount of copper objects, crops, bones and bone tools, beads of semi-precious stones house remains substantiate the remark. More important to note is the point that farmers of this phase pracwork was used, otherwise in most cases local trade could suffice the need of the early rural societies. Chakrabarti views a two-tier settlement hierarchy and emergence of regional centres in the zone.^[1]

The growth and maturity of the area may be explained by the agricultural richness and the elaborate trade network created in this zone. It has been already furnished that rivers, rivulets, streams, lakes and other water bodies saw settlements growing around them since the Mesolithic and earlier times. The rich, loamy and fertile soil was fit for agriculture and the area became the core of the Vārāṇasī bound trade connecting the northern India mainly the middle Gaṅgā plain to the Deccan. Through the routes passing from the hills and the rivers and huge merchandise was exchanged between the two regions. The mixed geography of the Vindhyan and the middle Gaṅgā plain thus formed a unit and provided a perfect rationale for the growth of the tract as a trade zone, more clearly since the NBPW times. So the general urbanization of this zone during the NBPW times may be attributed to the flourishing trade with Vārāṇasī holding the central place.

The urban feature of the area is notified by the appearance of fortified and even unfortified sites, located at the junctures of routes and serving as ferry points or halting places in course of long distance trade and could claim an urban status for their relatively bigger size, population and functionality. But the chief difference between these sites and Vārāṇasī was that despite their urbanity their role to the socio-economic level was limited to the regional scale and therefore could not grow as nodal points for a vast region. Vārāṇasī on the other hand was connected to far and distant places through trade routes and had a promising supra-regional role. It had all these sites located in these trade routes as important points and serving it in the long distance trade. Located along the trade routes or on the river banks they often worked as ferry points or halting places in a large trade network and derived their identity from their service at the middle range ranking and remained important but subordinate to Vārāṇasī and thereby placed as satellite settlements under Vārāṇasī.

In the settlement hierarchy while Vārāṇasī was at the top and the focal point of a vast cultural zone these urban sites occupied the middle rank, often providing a link between Vārāṇasī and the country side by helping to tap the resources and to carry out the commands from the top of the settlement hierarchy. So in multifarious ways they helped the central place but remained dependent on it for their identity. This urban complex satisfied the conditions of Monica Smith’s triaxial method to judge the urban qualities of a particular site or zone. Pointing out the inherent problems of traditional ways to measure urbanity she offers her eclectic triaxial method containing three axes represented by three criteria, namely demography, internal specialised or the visible physical attributes of a city and external or the functional role of it in respect to other settlements. A site needed to contain a high proportion of one criterion and part of other two, to be called a city. In this zone it has already been pointed out that population increased greatly from the beginning of the NBPW times i.e. 550BCE and brought very significant changes like colonisation of virgin tracts and rise of territorial states.

On the face of population pressure settlements started to spring up in areas far from water sources. New professional classes emerged who had little relation to land and agriculture. So the population axe was fulfilled. Among the physical attributes the most visible and discussed feature was the fortification and in this sector we see at least five sites with fortification and many other sites with an impressively large spatial extent. Some of them have presence of full time economic classes. Remains of potteries, stone and bone articles, beads attested the presence of non-agricultural professional class. Lastly their functionality in respect to the flourishing trade between north and south with Vārāṇasī as the central place has been demonstrated. Therefore Smith’s model of urbanity was largely attained by this urban complex. It realised all three requirements of urbanity and hence in this whole area from the NBPW times a real urban phenomenon can be noted.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Dilip K. Chakrabarti, The Archaeology of the Ancient Indian Cities, Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 162-64.