A Story Without Architecture: The Mythical Origins of Mumbai

Abstract

Stories that explain the origins of cities are often memorialised in architectural or natural monuments. Often, these man-made or natural formations are created or imagined respectively, to suit a particular narrative. In the case of Mumbai, the story of the city goddess Mumbadevi is central to the early imagined history of the city. Her canonical story is a relatively late creation, representing a literary and religious solution in the absence of an architectural marker. The shrine dedicated to her today anchors the narrative of the foundation of the city, but historically was built around the same time as the Sanskrit telling of the foundation of the city. In the Mumbai-Mahatmya, several storytelling strategies are used to create a synthetic city-goddess, but the form of the narrative is the trope of the timeless epic. The narrative is more important than the architectural creation for the foundation of Mumbai, and supplants any physical vestige as the centre of the city, including the shrine of Mumbadevi. This article will demonstrate that the history of the city and the goddess are deeply intertwined, with strands of multiple narratives that combine elements which would otherwise seem incongruous, much like the architectural pastiche that is seen at the site of the goddess temple.

Keywords:

• Mumbai
• foundation myths
• Devimahatmya
• British colonial
• urban history

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. There are several studies which compare two or more textual works that follow the same form, but have differing content; for example, see Mahnaz Bayat, Mahmood Tawoosi, and Mahdi Mahoozi, ‘Contentual study between Amir Khosrow Dehlavi’s Khamse and Nezami Ganjavi’s Khamse’ in Iranian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Research, vol. 1, issue 1 (2014), 1-6.

2. A.K. Ramanujan, ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’ in Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, ed. Paula Richman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 22-49.

3. For an example of common narratives used as a strategy of legitimisation, see Pushkar Sohoni, ‘Hunt for a location: founding cities in South and South-East Asia’ in Asian Ethnology, vol. 77 no. 1&2 (2018), 35-67.

4. By Mumbai city here is meant the area around Fort, and not Mumbai-Salsette (Sashti); for investigations on the latter as the history of Mumbai, see works by Suraj Pandit, Kurush Dalal, et al, of the The Salsette Project (undertaken by Mumbai University’s Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, the Archaeology Department of Sathaye College and the India Study Centre Trust).

5. To get a sense of the constantly changing social patterns in the city of Mumbai, see Manjiri Kamat, Prashant Kidambi, Rachel Dwyer (eds.), Bombay Before Mumbai: Essays in Honour of Jim Masselos (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019).

6. For a general history of early Mumbai, see Joseph Gerson da Cunha, The Origin of Bombay - Special Issue of the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Bombay; London: Society’s Library; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1900).

7. Sheetal Chhabria, ‘The Aboriginal Alibi: Governing Dispossession in Colonial Bombay’ in Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 60 no. 4 (2018), 1096-1126.

8. Dilip K. Chakrabarti, A History of Indian Archaeology: from the beginning to 1947 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1988), 3-4.

9. Marika Vicziany and Jayant Bapat, ‘Mumbādevī and the Other Mother Goddesses in Mumbai’ in Modern Asian Studies, vol. 43 no. 2 (Mar 2009), 511-541, esp. 516: “ … Mumbadevı had no place in the mythology of these communities.”

10. James B. Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan, in the years 1821 and 1822, including some account of the countries to the north-east of Persia (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster Row, 1825), 29.

11. A Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay, vol. 3 (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1894), 644: “A derivation which in meaning comes close to Boon Bay is that Bombay is Mubarak, the Lucky, so called because it was the first land sighted by sailors from Arabia and the Persian Gulf to Sopara Chaul and Thana.”

12. ibid., A Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay, vol. 3, 645.

13. Govinda Nārāyaṇa Māḍagavakara, Mumbaīcẽ varṇana (Kolhāpura: Samanvaya Prakāśana, Pramukha vitaraka, Ajaba Ḍisṭribyuṭarsa, 2012), 43-44.

14. ibid., Māḍagavakara, Mumbaīcẽ varṇana, 44; also op. cit., A Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay, vol. 3, 645.

15. Marika Vicziany and Jayant Bapat, ‘Mumbādevī and the Other Mother Goddesses in Mumbai’ in Modern Asian Studies, vol. 43 no. 2 (Mar 2009), 511-541, esp. 513.

16. ibid., Māḍagavakara, Mumbaīcẽ varṇana, 44.

17. Ibid., Māḍagavakara, Mumbaīcẽ varṇana, 44.

18. Maria Graham, Journal of a Residence in India (Edinburgh: Printed by George Ramsay and Company, 1813), 14.

19. op. cit., Joseph Gerson da Cunha, The Origin of Bombay, 45.

20. op. cit., Joseph Gerson da Cunha, The Origin of Bombay, 45.

21. op. cit., A Statistical Account of the Town and Island of Bombay, vol. 3, 646.

22. R.X. Murphy, ‘Remarks on the history of some of the oldest races now settled in Bombay; with reasons for supposing that the present island of Bombay consisted, in the 14th century, of two or more distinct islands’ in Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society from 1836 to 1838 (Bombay: American Mission Press, 1844), 128-139, esp. 130; also see op.cit., Māḍagavakara, Mumbaīcẽ varṇana, 45; for details of Mubarak Shah’s engagement with Gujarat, see James Bird (ed. And trans.), The Political and Statistical History of Gujarat translated from the Persian of Ali Muhammed Khan (London: Richard Bentley, 1835), 164-165.

23. For the new urban middle-class and its morality, see Prashant Kidambi, The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890-1920 (New York: Routldge, 2007), 210-218.

24. While such segregation existed, it was not to the extent as one might find in traditional cities; see Jim Masselos, Social Segregation and Crowd Cohesion: Reflections Around Some Preliminary Data from 19th Century Bombay City’’in Contributions to Indian Sociology, NS, vol, 13 (1979), 145–167.

25. The text is also mentioned in Suraj A. Pandit, ‘Mumbaidevi Mahatmya’ in Shripad Bhat (ed.), Sanskrit Sources of Indian History, vol. 1 (Pune: Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, 2013), 189-198.

26. ibid., R.X. Murphy, ‘Remarks on the history of some of the oldest races now settled in Bombay; with reasons for supposing that the present island of Bombay consisted, in the 14th century, of two or more distinct islands’ in Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society from 1836 to 1838 (Bombay: American Mission Press, 1844), 128-139.

27. I am indebted to Luther Obrock for help in translating the text, and R. Venkateswara Pai for clarifying some of the meanings.

28. The word Sūta refers to both bard of Puranic stories.

29. These conditions are reminiscent of the boon asked for by Hiranykashipu in the Bhagvata Purana.

30. The word nijatejasī is neuter dual nominative or accusative. Here it is considered as masculine dual nominative agreeing with Viṣṇu and Brahmā. It could perhaps be taken with the atyulbaṇe in the next pāda as neuter dual accusative.

31. Fragments of divine or other-worldly bodies, in this case of the daitya, often fall to the earth after celestial battles, and are then the basis for foundation myths of cities and temples; op. cit., Pushkar Sohoni, ‘Hunt for a Location: Founding Cities in South and South-East Asia.’

32. Pre-pubescent young girls.

33. This verse does not make sense.

34. The grammatical forms seem questionable in this verse.

35. Vicziany and Bapat, 512-517 passim, cite J.H. Dave, Śaktitatva ane Śivatatva (Mumbai: Sri Mumbadevi Mandir Trust, 1985) (in Gujarati).

36. C. Mackenzie Brown, The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana (Albany: New York University Press, 1990), 9.

37. Muṃbādevī [VCD], producer, director, Jī. Je. Caudharī.

38. Brian Black and Jonathan Geen, ‘The character of “character” in early South Asian religious narratives: an introductory essay’ in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 79, No. 1 (Mar 2011), 6-32, esp. 8.

39. David Kinsley, ‘The Portrait of the Goddess in the Devī-māhātmya’ in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, vol. 46 no. 4 (Dec 1978), 489-506, esp. 501.

40. Andrea Marion Pinkney, ‘An ever-present history in the land of the Gods: modern “Māhātmya” writing on Uttarakhand’ in International Journal of Hindu Studies, vol. 17 no. 3 (Dec 2013), 229-260, esp. 229.

41. See Karline McLain, ‘Holy superheroine: A comic book interpretation of the Hindu Devī Māhātmya scripture’ in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol.71 no. 2 (2008), 297-322.

42. As reproduced in Mumbaīcẽ varṇana.