Gray John - Domestic Mandala

DOMESTIC MANDALA

Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific

Series Editors:

Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern

University of Pittsburgh, USA

This series offers a fresh perspective on Asian and Indo-Pacific Anthropology. Acknowledging the increasing impact of transnational flows of ideas and practices across borders, the series widens the established geographical remit of Asian studies to consider the entire Indo-Pacific region. In addition to focussed ethnographic studies, the series incorporates thematic work on issues of cross-regional impact, including globalization, the spread of terrorism, and alternative medical practices.

The series further aims to be innovative in its disciplinary breadth, linking anthropological theory with studies in cultural history and religious studies, thus reflecting the current creative interactions between anthropology and historical scholarship that are enriching the study of Asia and the Indo-Pacific region. While the series covers classic themes within the anthropology of the region such as ritual, political and economic issues will also be tackled. Studies of adaptation, change and conflict in small-scale situations enmeshed in wider currents of change will have a significant place in this range of foci.

We publish scholarly texts, both single-authored and collaborative as well as collections of thematically organized essays. The series aims to reach a core audience of anthropologists and Asian Studies specialists, but also to be accessible to a broader multidisciplinary readership.

Titles in the series

Aboriginal Art, Identity and Appropriation

Elizabeth Burns Coleman

ISBN 0 7546 4403 0

The Making of Global and Local Modernities in Melanesia

Humiliation, Transformation and the Nature of Cultural Change

Edited by

Joel Robbins and Holly Wardlow

ISBN 0 7546 4312 3

Of Marriage, Violence and Sorcery

The Quest for Power in Northern Queensland

David McKnight

ISBN 0 7546 4465 0

Domestic Mandala

Architecture of Lifeworlds in Nepal

JOHN GRAY

University of Adelaide, Australia

First published 2006 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Copyright c 2006 John Gray

John Gray has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval s ystem, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Gray, John N., 1945

Domestic mandala : architecture of lifeworlds in Nepal. -(Anthropology and cultural history in Asia and the Indo-Pacific)

1. Sacred space - Social aspects - Nepal 2. Symbolism in architecture - Nepal 3. Dwellings - Nepal - Religious aspects - Hindu 4, Architecture. Domestic - Nepal 5. Architecture and religion 6. Mandala - Social aspects - Nepal 7. Yantras

I. Title

306.6'945'095496

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gray, John N., 1945

Domestic mandala : architecture of lifeworlds in Nepal / by John Gray.

p. cm. -- (Anthropology and cultural history in Asia and the Indo-Pacific)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7546-4538-X

1. Chhetris--Dwellings--Nepal--Kholagaun. 2. Chhetris-Nepal-Kholagaun-Social life and customs. 3. Mandala--Nepal--Kholagaun. 4. Architecture and cosmology. 5. Hindu cosmology. 6 Hinduism--Nepal--Kholagaun--Rituals. I. Title. II. Series.

DS493.9.C49G73 2006

305.891'495--dc22

2006002767

Transfered to Digital Printing in 2012

ISBN 9780754645382 (hbk)

Contents

For Martin Frank

Permission to reproduce the following is gratefully acknowledged by the publisher:

: Chris Crothers, School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide.

Cover illustration and , Sri Yantra, Ajit Mookherjee Collection. From Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity by Madhu Khanna, Thames and Hudson, London.

(left), Nairatma Mandala, Early Tibetan Mandalas: The Rossi Collection, Rossi & Rossi Ltd, London.

, Vastu purusha mandala, Vistasp Mehta, bT Square Peg Design Studio.

, Two spatial configurations of vastu purusha mandala. From Indian Architectural Theory: Contemporary Uses of Vastu Vidya, V. Chakrabarti, Oxford University Press, Delhi.

Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart

We are very happy to include John Grays excellent ethnographic exposition on Domestic Mandala: Architecture of Lifeworlds in Nepal in our series on Anthropology and Cultural History in Asia and the Indo-Pacific. Dr. Gray is a noted scholar whose work spans Lowland Scotland and the Highland reaches of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal. This book also creates bridges between architecture and anthropology, since it is a sustained discussion of the cosmological significance of houses in Kholagaun hamlet in the village of Banaspati in Kathmandu. Specifically, Dr. Gray argues that the house is seen imaginatively as a mandala or mystic diagram that acts to bring the meanings of the sacred order or cosmos in peoples lives literally close to home. Unifying the analysis is the concept of homology and mystical connection between different domains of existence, seen as macrocosm and microcosm. In this way the house can be seen to be a part of and also to replicate the wider cosmos; while the human body itself may be seen as a further microcosmic version of a mandala. As Dr. Gray points out, these correspondences are not just a matter of abstract cognition. They are embodied and practical, guiding people in terms of rituals they need to perform in order to ensure their health and fertility. At the same time, people are enjoined by their cosmological notions not to become too attached to worldly concerns, so that they can see through the impediments of illusion and grasp the unity of the cosmos as something beyond themselves. It might seem a tall order for the architecture of houses to express all these levels and contradictions of cosmological thought, but Dr. Gray points out that architecture in general produces embodied meanings and creates meaningful space; or, as we might put it, meaningful places that encapsulate both practical concerns and cosmological values. In the case of Kholagaun, Dr. Gray argues that there are actually two spatial modalities at work in houses: a mandalic mode, which emphasizes concentric spaces around a center and leads people to understand the unity of the cosmos; and a yantric mode, which deals with cardinal directions and the ritual ways of achieving auspiciousness and success in the world. Both persons and houses are intersections of these two modes, and both are also related to the foundational myth of the cosmic being Purusha, from whose self-sacrificial body came everything in the world, and a kind of sacred geometry associated with the construction of circles and with central points.