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This book explores the manner in which human societies understood and managed scarce water resources. Focusing on the arid, rain shadow region of Marathwada, it documents the panoramic history of this region's most important resource - water.
List of contents
List of figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Foregrounding water within the cultural landscape of Ellora-Khuldabad-Daulatabad - a methodological approach
Overview of historical developments in Ellora-Khuldabad-Daulatabad
Delineating the cultural landscape of Ellora-Khuldabad-Daulatabad
1 Water and settlements - historical development of the region vis-à-vis the political economy of the Deccan; networks of trade and patronage
Daulatabad - a layered historical narrative
Politics of patronage - the water cisterns of Ellora caves
Takaswami ashram - a modern reuse of a cave cistern
2 Water and sacrality - sacred geography and networks of pilgrimage
Sacred geography and the inflow of people and ideas
Water as the embodiment of fertility and healing powers
Calling the monsoon - the Panchami festival in Verul
3 Water and memory - community identities as the past remembered; memories as carriers of values, beliefs and practices
Re-covering "Malik Ambar ki Pipeline" - reconstructing the past through community memories
Malik Ambar: the slave who became a sultan
Imagining the region: locating community memories in space
Conclusion: A unique cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism unfolding in the Deccan landscape
The Kitab-e-Nauras
of Ibrahim Adil Shah: a kaliedoscopic vision of Deccan cosmopolitanism Bibliography
Index
About the author
Yaaminey Mubayi is a historian who has worked in the area of cultural heritage and community development over the past 20 years. Her work includes studies of craft, local histories, community memories, traditional knowledge and indigenous ecologies. She has published widely in these areas, and her previous book,
Altar of Power - The temple and the state in the land of Jagannatha, came out in 2005. She lives with her family in New Delhi, India, and, in recent years, has focused her energies on teaching, research and writing.
Summary
This book explores the manner in which human societies understood and managed scarce water resources. Focusing on the arid, rain shadow region of Marathwada, it documents the panoramic history of this region’s most important resource – water.
