Spatial dynamics of a temple town : a case study of Srirangam

Abstract

Spatial Dynamics is that how the process of change or growth took over the years spatially. The aim of the thesis is to study the spatial dynamics of the temple town. The objectives of the thesis are  To study the character of the temple town.  To analyse the evolution and landuse pattern of the town.  To study the traditional management systems and socio-cultural pattern influence on the town.  To suggest planning interventions for conserving the core of the town. In order to achieve these objectives literature study on ancient town planning patterns ,social order ,case studies of Madurai , Varanasi, Omkareshwar , Karimabad are reviewed to identify the parameters such as accessibility and mobility , modern amenities and chaging lifestyles , affordability , individual development factors which influence the transformation and required primary data such as land use,socio economic household data and secondary data such as detailed development plans, master plans , literature related to the temple are collected and analysed. Srirangantha Swami temple is World’s most illustrious temple and also World’s largest functioning temple which is an island situated between cauvery and kolladiam. The design concept of the temple complex is a very unique concept with seven (sapta) enclosures which gives it a feature of temple town by letting people settle with in the enclosures.It also follows one of the ancient town planning pattern Sarvatobhadra as mentioned in the Manasara architecture. Social order which follows a hierarchy of Brahmins being on the top called as agraharam followed by Kshatriyas, Vhaishyas and Sudras at the bottom of the social ladder. Settlement in the temple town started with this social order where the enclosures nearer to the temple were given for the higher varna people as we go away from the temple the outer enclosure are for lower varna people. Drastically that pattern of settlement is still found and followed in Srirangam. To introduce the study area Srirangam comes as a zone under Tiruchirapalli City Corporation in Tiruchirapalli district, Tamilnadu.Srirangam zone consists of 15 wards out of which 9 wards belong to South Srirangam and 6 wards belong to Island Srirangam.The study limits 6 wards of Island Srirangam to analyse the transformation pattern which has a population of 1,06,037 and an area of 19.4 sq.km where as for detailed study the area is limited to the Ancient temple complex of 156 acres. This thesis discuss about the character of a temple town with parameters like demographic transformation, literacy rate and tourism inflow, built use, activity mapping, mental mapping which gives an idea about people’s perception about the area and to understand the segregration Shannon’s Wiener Index of diversity is done to get the evenness in the community which stands at 0.39 which is ideally supposed to be 1 but being way less than 1 it shows the segregration between the people.Socio economic profile with personal interviews of people and a photographic representation are also added to study the character of the temple town. To achieve the second objective that is to analyse how the spatial transformation took place over the years evolution of the town over the decades and land use of the town for 17 years has been shown which infers that the predominant land use is residential it is more or less the same over the years but there is increase in the commercial area with hotels, lodges coming up with more number of tourists proportionally. To understand how the socio cultural aspects like caste is affecting the town aspects like socio economic condition, mode of living, mode of payment, housing characteristics, land holdings, agriculture labour were analysed and found out that maybe because of stratification or social order the socio-economic condition of the lower caste people is not very similar to higher caste people. By analysing the pros and cons of all the four entrances to the temple complex it is found that reorganizing of the south entrance which has all the commercial activities and issues like congestion, parking and encroachment so to take of the pressure from the south gate required strategies like developing the east gate & north gate and controlling the encroachment and parking are suggested. As per the analysis tourism is the identified sector with an inflow of 2,300 tourists per day and it has an inflow of more than a lakh tourists in the months of january and december because of Vaikuntaekadasi. So to drive the growth of the economy and to preserve the heritage character of the town a heritage tour is proposed covering the eight major tourist attractions in Srirangam a stretch of 7.6 km. To conserve the core are required guidelines are suggested by reviewing the best practices in conservation.