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Champaner‐Pavagadh Archaeological Park: A Design Approach

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 International Journal of Heritage Studies

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Champaner‐Pavagadh Archaeological Park: A

Design Approach

Amita Sinha

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A Design Approach, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 10:2, 117-128, DOI:
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International Journal of Heritage Studies
Vol. 10, No. 2, May 2004, pp. 117–128

Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological
Park: A Design Approach
Amita Sinha
000000May
10
International
10.1080/13527250410001692859
rjhs10201.sgm
1352-7258
Original
Taylor
22004 and
& 2004
Article
Francis
(print)/1470-3610
Francis
Journal
Ltd
Ltd
of Heritage
(online)
Studies

Champaner-Pavagadh, like many other heritage sites in India, is both an historic and
ethnographic landscape. It possesses a unique status as a medieval city—Champaner—
frozen in time, more or less protected by its sudden abandonment 450 years ago. At the
same time, it is a living sacred site—Pavagadh Hill—visited annually by millions, with a
resident population. Efforts are underway to declare the hill and the remains of the medi-
eval city at its foot an archaeological park, which will ensure protection and conservation
of cultural and natural resources. The challenge in designing the site as an archaeological
park lies in articulating the pastoral image conjured up by the term in a manner that does
not belie complex issues of land ownership, varied use, and ecological integrity of the site.
Working landscapes—farms, flower fields, orchards, and nurseries—can be employed as a
landscape-design typology to ensure sustainability and to preserve and frame sightlines to
monuments. Garden archaeology is necessary to uncover the symbiotic relationship
between buildings and gardens of medieval Champaner.

Keywords: Archaeological Park; Pastoral Landscape; Working Landscapes; Garden

Archaeology; Sacred Site; Ethnographic Landscape

For a brief period between 1484 and 1535 CE, Champaner, the acclaimed city of
beautiful gardens and mosques, was the capital of Gujarat and supported an unparal-
leled efflorescence in art and architecture. Today, the site is more than a medieval city
lost in the jungle. A destination to millions of pilgrims every year, it represents the
resurgence of the great mother-goddess worship in the guise of the Hindu deity Kalika
Mata, and exhibits both the palimpsest of landscape layers inscribed over time and the
juxtaposition of Islamic and Hindu traditions in architecture and city planning. It is a
cultural landscape rich in mythology and living traditions, affording an encounter with
the numinous and the possibility of investigating the medieval epoch of Gujarat’s
history. There are exhilarating vistas from the hill into the valleys and the countryside,

Amita Sinha, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Correspondence to: a-sinha@uiuc.edu

ISSN 1352–7258 (print)/ISSN 1470–3610 (online) © 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/13527250410001692859
118 A. Sinha
the surprise discovery of monumental ruins hidden in the dense jungle growth, and
buildings with sublime proportions and rich iconography inviting one to linger, to
touch the intricately carved surfaces, and to feel the spaces with one’s body. The site
offers spiritual solace and sensual delights, lessons in history, and so much more that it
becomes imperative to examine what should be a fitting paradigm underlying a
landscape management plan for its conservation and development.1

Archaeological Park
Much of the Islamic city of Champaner lies buried under dense scrub, making it
difficult to access some of the standing monuments. For the most part, the Rajput
settlements on Pavagadh Hill are off the beaten pilgrim tracks. Ninety per cent of the
land over which the ruins lie is under the protection and management of the State
Forestry Department. Thirty-six historic buildings are protected and cared for by the
Archaeological Survey of India and the Hindu and Jain temples are owned by trusts.2
In addition, there is private ownership of land in the 150-year-old Champaner village.
Tiny hamlets dot the landscape below the hill, while along the pilgrim path on the hill
larger settlements have sprung up to take care of the devotees’ needs. Agricultural fields
at the base of Pavagadh Hill come under revenue land, i.e. farming is done by locals on
paying a revenue tax. The local economy is tied to agriculture, forest produce, and
temple activities.
A huge, hitherto untapped potential lies in developing the site as an historic district
awaiting nomination on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Efforts in this direction
by Heritage Trust, Baroda, began in the mid-1980s by proposing the idea of an
archaeological park.3 The term implies a park-like environment nestling historic
buildings and excavated ruins. The imagery conjured up is not that of a densely built
up urban district but of a pastoral landscape that is a green backdrop to the age-old
structures. It implies boundedness and separation from the larger landscape for
protection, conservation, and interpretation. This image has to accommodate the
wilderness presently covering much of the ruins, 6,000 people living on the site, and
the millions who trek up the hill in single-minded pursuit of spiritual merit. Given
that re-excavating the medieval city and restoring it will require enormous resources
not presently available, this concept appears tenable though not entirely unproblem-
atic. The challenge lies in articulating it in a manner that does not belie complex
issues of land ownership, varied use, and ecological integrity of the site. The mosaic of
public and private landownership will cause difficulties in land consolidation and in
the exercise of development controls. Pilgrimage and tourism can be potentially
conflicting unless sensitivity is exercised in reconciling historic appreciation with
veneration of sacred landscape.
What exactly should the ‘pastoral’ look be, given the site realities? What should be its
aesthetic order fulfilling the pragmatics of the visitor’s orchestrated movement and
modulated experience? Does ‘pastoral’ imply that the landscape of the archaeological
park should be scenic, while site exigencies demand that it be sustainable—goals that
are not mutually contradictory though they may sound as such?
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 119
Scenic Landscape
Landscapes, particularly in the Western tradition, have long been perceived in terms of
their visual appeal and have been shaped to satisfy the picturesque mode of vision. The
century-and-a-quarter history of the park movement in the USA, both regional and
municipal, was dominated by the English landscape park aesthetic. Preservation of
scenic landscapes in national parks, deemed as national heritage, entailed designs of
trails and outlook points that maximised opportunities to view edifying sights.4 The
tourist gaze all over the world is conditioned to consume the spectacular voraciously
and indeed to expect it in the places visited.
If Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park is designed according to the require-
ments of this aesthetic, will it violate the integrity of the historical landscape? It may be
useful to speculate upon the role played by vision in the ancient and medieval cultural
landscape as it evolved through time. Pavagadh Hill, suddenly rising from the flat plain
around it, is a striking feature of the landscape and, perhaps for that very reason,
evoked sacred associations of the axis mundi kind. Indeed, myths ascribe its shape to be
that of the goddess Sati’s toe5 (see Figure 1). The temple on top of the hill, which may
have been first built in the 2nd century CE, commanded a sweeping view of the
surroundings, and enjoyed a pre-eminent location close to the heavens, its summit

Figure 1 Summit of Pavagadh Hill.

120 A. Sinha

Figure 2 Remains of the Patai Rawal Palace on Pavagadh Hill.

grazing the skies. Another legend incorporated the site into the epic Ramayana by
ascribing the sage Viswamitra’s ashram to a spectacular location overlooking the
Vishwamitri valley.
Both Hindu and Islamic cultures exploited the visual potential of the topography.
Summit of Pavagadh Hill.

The numinous aspect of the landscape guided the settlement pattern of Hindus. Vision
was paramount in signifying the goddess’s protective power and also served pragmatic
concerns such as defence. The sacred hill invited the Rajput settlement, not only owing
to its beneficent aura but also because the plateaus in the hill were excellent prospect–
refuge configurations and were thus natural locations for defensive fortifications in the
restive medieval period (see Figure 2). Vision was crucial in ensuring the safety of the
settlement, and thus the siting and form of its architecture.
Islamic rule strengthened the many forts on Pavagadh and connected them with the
Remains of the Patai Rawal Palace on Pavagadh Hill.

new city of Champaner at its foot. The Islamic city of Champaner at the foot of Pavagadh
Hill also used the power inscribed in the visually dominant architectural elements—
domes and minarets of mosques—to proclaim the supremacy of Islam over the Hindu
idolaters6 (see Figure 3). The hill was framed in the window openings and in the balco-
nies of palaces and mosques. Even though the landscape was not sacred to the Muslims,
water and topography played a crucial role in Islamic urbanism. Design vocabulary was
shared by both cultures in the architecture of stepped wells and tanks, jharokhas (balco-
nies) on building façades, and pot and foliage motifs in building ornamentation.
Tradition and necessity ensured that the visual relationships ordering the medieval
View of Champaner.

cultural landscape remained sacrosanct until the desertion of the site in the 16th
century. The sacredness of the hill was dormant for a few centuries but has been revived
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 121

Figure 3 View of Champaner.

in recent times and has led to the rebuilding of the Kalika Mata and Jain temples.
However, both the remnants of Rajput settlement and the Islamic buildings of
Champaner are now forgotten and largely ignored features of the landscape, main-
tained by the Archaeological Survey of India but under real threat of visual obliteration
by new buildings mushrooming all over the site to cater to the requirements of the
heavy pilgrim traffic (see Figure 4). Since cultural resources—in this case the architec-
tural heritage—form the most significant features of the archaeological park, it is
imperative that they not only be preserved and restored but also continue to command
the viewsheds that were their prerogative in their heydays. Viewshed protection can be
ensured by such commonly employed legal measures as conservation easement, which
allows for purchase or transfer of development rights.7 Views to the goddess temples
on the crest of Mauliya and Bhadrakali plateaus should be unobstructed for the
pilgrim as he or she climbs the 5 km path on Pavagadh Hill in order to obtain
darshan—sighting of the deity. The incongruous juxtaposition of historic buildings
with ramshackle structures minimises the visual impact, blocks access, and detracts
from the cultural significance of the former. Every heritage site, therefore, needs a
buffer zone to ensure protection from human and vegetal encroachment.
Given the large forest cover over the buried remains of Champaner, it would be
Pilgrim Facilities Opposite the Royal Enclosure in Champaner.

expedient to excavate along the heritage trails built over medieval roads that link the
122 A. Sinha

Figure 4 Pilgrim Facilities Opposite the Royal Enclosure in Champaner.

standing mosques and mausoleums. Planting of ornamental Champa (after which

Champaner was named) along the fort walls and trails will make the city legible from
the vantage points on the hilly plateaus above. Historical ruins as follies in a landscape
park comprise an image that the tourist is conditioned to expect, but can be achieved
only at a great cost, involving investment of capital-intensive resources in the landscape
and its long-term massive upkeep. Given the realities of the site, the concept of a land-
scape park should be redefined and, instead of replacing the forest scrub with rolling
lawns, it would be more sustainable to undertake selective planting. Heritage structures
can be framed by vegetation and made into foci of sudden, truncated, or terminal
vistas. Planting design could beckon and entice the visitor to the buildings, it could hide
and reveal, suggest and conceal them, set them off against a backdrop, or let them be
glimpsed half-hidden through a screen. These design strategies would not recreate the
medieval urban environment—an impossible task given the destruction and decay—
but they would ensure the visibility and enhancement of what remains.

Working Landscapes
The emerging criticism of designing solely for vision rests upon its distancing aspect—
that is, the lack of involvement of the body and its other senses. The privileging of
vision results in a certain blandness of the environment and subjugation of nature in a
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 123
picture frame devoid of life. The dilemmas faced in employing vision as a critical design
tool can be resolved by looking for inspiration in the vernacular landscapes that consti-
tute the fabric of the Indian countryside. So ubiquitous and seemingly unchanging are
they, that they have been called ‘timeless’. They represent a traditional, well-established
order of the working, cultivated land that is the source of physical sustenance and
cultural traditions to millions. The visual relationships inscribed in this landscape
speak of the geometry of the flat ground plane, evenly planted trees in deep, shady
orchards, the sudden looming of a small, sacred grove, a cluster of mud and thatched
huts huddled together breaking the monotony of the green and yellow fields, small and
large ponds, tubewells and wells using humble, antiquated technology for drawing
water, dotting the fields. This is a calming, restful landscape to the eye and one that
evokes fond associations.
This version of the Indian pastoral landscape can be gainfully employed within
archaeological parks with indigenous human settlements. Instead of being seen as
‘encroachments’ on public land (commonly the case with monument complexes in
urban areas) they should be perceived as assets. A small village of 1,000 inhabitants
nestles along the walls of the royal enclosure in Champaner. Land is farmed both within
the royal enclosure (where the palace gardens once were) and outside in its immediate
vicinity. These farm pockets continue the visual prominence of the royal enclosure
fortification system and are a productive use of land entailing no public expenditure.
Private ownership would allow public access to the heritage sites. Beyond the east gate
of the royal enclosure towards the Jami mosque, in the area that could serve as the
centre of the archaeological park where an interpretation centre could be located and
from whence heritage trails could commence, other working landscape prototypes
such as flower fields, orchards, and nurseries could be employed. These could be
profitably employed for commercial purposes. However, their utility could go beyond
profit since they could have an important role to play in orchestrating the visitor
experience. Flower fields would not only supply the large demand for flowers needed
in the worship rituals carried out in the temples on the hill, but also be the front garden
welcoming the visitor to the archaeological park. Mango orchards could be used for
family picnics—the great Indian recreational outing—where the traditional celebra-
tion of the arrival of monsoons can take place by putting up makeshift swings in the
trees. Nurseries would not only supply seeds and saplings to the local farmers but also
have demonstration gardens designed to delight the visitor. These working landscapes
could preserve and frame sightlines to monuments, provide a splendid array of colours,
textures, and fragrances, and modulate sunlight and shade, generating a pleasant
microclimate, so crucial in the Indian summer heat (see Figure 5).
Other types of vernacular landscapes could inform the designs of specific spaces for
Illustrative Plan Showing the Working Landscape of Champaner.

visitors to the archaeological park. For example, the residential courtyard could be the
generator of banyan courts that could serve as rest areas for visitors between exploring
the various heritage trails (see Figure 6), and the Jami mosque could once again be
framed by a large maidan, as was likely in its heyday. What little we know of historic
Champaner suggests that the courtyard form of housing prevailed then, too. If employed
imaginatively, these familiar design typologies would situate the archaeological park not
124 A. Sinha

Figure 5 Illustrative Plan Showing the Working Landscape of Champaner.

in the international landscape-park style but in a regional context. They speak of envi-
ronmental and economic sustainability, allowing the local population to continue to
earn its livelihood and segue successfully into the tourist economy.
Plan of Interpretation Centre Building.

Garden Archaeology
The famed gardens of Champaner should be recreated if possible, adding another
landscape type to the archaeological park, in this case, one that is historically valid
and was perhaps the key element in the identity of the Islamic city. Very little is
known about the medieval gardens of Gujarat and Champaner; there is presently
only one excavated site—Amir’s Manzil, the residence of a wealthy person—that
offers any clue to what garden details would have been like in that period. Elaborate
water architecture consisting of stepped tanks, serpentine channels, and wells,
together with pavilions and potted plants, marked the garden courts in the mansion
close to a stream rivulet. The royal gardens in the inner fort are now buried
under agricultural fields with only the ruins of a summer pavilion extant. In the
south-eastern quarter of the city, in the ruins of a palace known as Rani no Mahal,
can be seen ruins of water tanks and walkways. A suburban pleasure garden for the
Sultan on the banks of Lake Bada Talao has only a mosque and a pigeon dovecote
remaining.
Garden archaeology at the site promises to yield dividends. Soil stratigraphy at
certain selected locations can provide a physical record of garden soil, planting pits, and
beds. Where gardens have disappeared under ploughed fields (as in the royal enclo-
sure), stripping, trenching, intermittent excavation, or other types of probes into the
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 125

Figure 6 Plan of Interpretation Centre Building.

soil, would be useful. Terraced walls, water channels, and axial walkways, when
detected, offer a good clue to the horizontal and vertical planes of the garden. Remote
sensing, using infra-red photography, can detect its otherwise invisible boundaries.8
Pollen studies are useful in determining the historical record of vegetation. A recent
example is the excavations at Mahtab Bagh (the moonlight garden opposite the Taj
Mahal across the River Yamuna) in 1996 and 1998. A floristic inventory of vegetation
at the site was followed by extraction of soil samples from test pits. Undisturbed soil
strata were found on walkways along the walls and terrace yielding plant material from
the Mughal period. Analysis with light and electron microscopy showed that it was
mostly vegetation native to the Indian subcontinent (with the exception of cypress)
that was planted in Mughal gardens.9
The Archaeological Survey of India employs a horticultural aesthetic in maintaining
the grounds of monuments such as the Jami and Shehri mosques. The huge lawns in
the mosque courtyards, the allee of Ashoka trees lining the approach, ornamental
shrubbery, and occasional flowerbeds, compose a green, ordered, even if somewhat
bland, background to the imposing and richly textured buildings (see Figure 7). If this
horticultural aesthetic were to be expanded to cover the entire landscape over which
the ruins lie, beyond the immediate vicinity of the historic buildings, it would result in
a vast colonial garden, incongruous in relation to the surrounding context. Based upon
archaeological research, steps can be taken to revive water structures, plant orchards in
char baghs, and build axial walkways at the heritage sites, bringing a measure of authen-
ticity to the surroundings of mosques, mausoleums, and palaces.
126 A. Sinha

Figure 7 Jami Mosque Grounds.

Jami Mosque Grounds.

Conclusion
Champaner-Pavagadh, like many other heritage sites in India, is both an historic and
an ethnographic landscape, making its conservation and restoration neither an easy
nor straightforward task.10 The many stakeholders with separate interests, different
categories of users such as tourists, pilgrims, and residents, an outdated legislative
framework, and the absence of a central institutional authority (such as the US
National Park Service) make site management of any landscape plan difficult. The site
possesses a unique status as a medieval city, partly protected by its sudden abandon-
ment 450 years ago, and is at the same time a living sacred site visited by millions, with
a resident population. It is likely that the ‘tourist gaze’ will be different from the
‘pilgrim gaze’, as will be their respective involvement with the landscape. It is necessary,
therefore, to think in terms of both historic and cultural landscapes—medieval gardens
and urban structure as well as contemporary vernacular working landscapes—when
drawing up a plan for its development. As conservationist Nalini Thakur points out,
existing legislation in India that is applied to Champaner-Pavagadh—the Ancient
Monuments Act—is inadequate because it is monument centred, while the Forestry
Act—governing 90% of the land—protects natural resources only.11 Both ignore the
concept of cultural landscapes as integral to conservation efforts; the former treats the
 International Journal of Heritage Studies 127
immediate landscape as cosmetic while the latter views nature and landscape in
utilitarian terms.12 Clearly, a new legislative framework is necessary for sites such as
Champaner-Pavagadh, one that can ensure a development plan that balances historic
conservation of buildings with protection of their place in the landscape within an
overall ecological sustainability. A recreation of historic landscapes is desirable and
necessary for these sites to be living testimony to India’s magnificent cultural heritage.
Situating them within a larger context whose aesthetic order is derived not from the
international landscape-park style but from the local vernacular landscape, establishes
a temporal continuity with that heritage.

Notes
[1] The Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign,
USA, was invited by Heritage Trust, Baroda, to prepare a landscape management plan for the
Champaner-Pavgadh Archaeological Park. A brief site visit by a team of faculty and students
was followed by an eight-week design workshop in Urbana Champaign, resulting in the
Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park, Gujarat, India report, 2001. This article examines
some of the assumptions behind our design for the park.
[2] For a listing of buildings and the initial site survey see Nalini Thakur, ‘Champaner: Draft
Action Plan for Integrated Conservation’.
[3] Quarrying in the immediate vicinity of the heritage precinct was declared illegal in 1990 as a
result of the efforts of the Heritage Trust. The Trust holds periodic workshops, seminars, and
festivals to raise public awareness of the heritage value of Champaner-Pavagadh.
[4] Ethan Carr, Wilderness by Design: Landscape Architecture and the National Park Service.
[5] The site is a regional pilgrim centre and a Shakti-pitha, meaning that it is recognised as a place
where a part of Sati’s dismembered dead body fell when Shiva was carrying it in a frenzy of grief.
[6] The site marked a prolonged and bitter contest between Rajput and Muslim kings and later
between the Sultan of Gujarat and the Mughal Emperor Humayun. Sultan Mehmud Begada
besieged the Rajput fort of Patai Rawal for two years (1482–1484 CE) before he could make the
hill fort his own. Five hundred Rajput women and children burnt themselves in ritualistic
jauhar to evade capture. Patai Rawal and his minister were beheaded when they refused to
convert to Islam. Upon his success, Mehmud Begada built the new city of Champaner in the
foothills of Pavagadh. The goddess temple on the hilltop was destroyed and a mausoleum to a
Sufi saint, Sadan Shah, was built on its ruins. Today, worshippers pray at the rebuilt Kalika
Mata temple as well as at the mausoleum now within the complex. Champaner-Pavagadh,
therefore, not only chronicles the vicissitudes of history, the story of winners and losers, but
also represents a reconciliation with the past.
[7] In the USA, Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) protected some 400,000 acres of farm-
land in 15 states in 1997, according to Arnold Alanen, ‘Considering the Ordinary: Vernacular
Landscapes in Small Towns and Rural Areas’.
[8] See Naomi Miller and Kathryn Gleason, The Archaeology of Garden and Field.
[9] David Lentz, ‘Botanical Symbolism and Function at the Mahtab Bagh’.
[10] Two World Heritage Sites whose development plans were drawn by the University of
Illinois—the Sarnath and Taj Mahal complexes in 1990 and 1999, respectively—have villages
and hamlets within the boundary of the protected cultural zone. This is a common pattern of
land use in large historic sites, necessitating a close look at ways of incorporating the living
population into heritage management.
[11] Nalini Thakur, ‘The Archaeological Park as a Tool for Integrated Protecting Heritage
Management with Planning Process: The Case of the Deserted 15th Century Capital Site
 128 A. Sinha
Champaner-Pavagadh, Gujarat’. Paper presented at the ‘Simplification of Urban Develop-
ment Control Regulations’ conference, Goa, 21–24 September 2000.
[12] Historic landscape preservation in the USA has been practised widely only since the 1980s,
even though the legal mandate to protect cultural resources within the National Park system
was given by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Heritage Tourism
programme responsible for recreating historic landscapes constituted half of the $344 billion
tourism-based economy in 1991. See Richard Francaviglia, ‘Selling Heritage Landscapes’.

References
Alanen, A. ‘Considering the Ordinary: Vernacular Landscapes in Small Towns and Rural Areas’. In
Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, edited by A. Alanen and R. Melnick. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000: 112–42.
Carr, E. Wilderness by Design: Landscape Architecture and the National Park Service. Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1998.
Francaviglia, R. ‘Selling Heritage Landscapes’. In Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America, edited
by A. Alanen and R. Melnick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000: 44–69.
Lentz, D. ‘Botanical Symbolism and Function at the Mahtab Bagh’. In The Moonlight Garden: New
Discoveries at the Taj Mahal, edited by E. Moynihan. Seattle: University of Washington Press,
2000: 43–58.
Miller, N., and K. Gleason, eds. The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1994.
Thakur, N. ‘Champaner: Draft Action Plan for Integrated Conservation’. Unpublished report by
Heritage Trust, Baroda, 1987.

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