Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal

by Robert I. Levy, Kedar Rajopadhyaya (Contributor)

Mesocosm is a study of Hinduism in its most fully realized form as a symbolic system for organizing the life of a particular kind of city—what the author terms an "archaic" city. The work is a detailed description and analysis of the symbolic world of Bhaktapur, a unicultural city in the Kathmandu Valley, a city which is perhaps the last surviving example of a type of organization once widespread in the ancient world.

Robert Levy views Bhaktapur as a structured "mesocosm," mediating between the microcosm of individual self-conception and the macrocosm of the culturally conceived larger universe. The city is a bounded entity, grounded on a minutely divided and interrelated sacrilized space. It uses that space, roles assigned by an elaborate caste system, a semantically differentiated pantheon, and the tempos and forms of the festival year and rites of passage to construct a "civic dance," a web of communication and instruction which deeply affects the experience of Bhaktapur's citizens. Levy investigates the meaning of the community to the people who live there and suggests how the religious forms that have challenged Hinduism in South Asia—Christianity and, above all, Islam—are profoundly antithetical to Hinduism as the organizing principle for cities such as Bhaktapur. Mesocosm is a groundbreaking contribution to anthropology, social and religious history, and Indian and Nepalese studies.

800 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 1991

Reviews

[S. Wigget · Rating 5 out of 5]

This esoteric tome is the best source if you're writing a novel set in Bhaktapur, Nepal. Or something like that.

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book before my trip to Nepal, which has been one of the best experiences of my life, and certainly this huge essay was enlightening.

It is, in fact, a testament dedicated to a sacred city, which was revered in its essence. However, in the last 20 years, due to the arrival of foreigners, from other ethnic groups in Nepal, this has changed radically.

Nevertheless, this book allowed me to understand firsthand what that sacred city was like, something that in the West disappeared almost entirely with Greece and Rome, and perhaps a bit with Christianity.

Furthermore, it is important to point out that the book shapes both the grand and the small, and it is a profound study, a bridge between disciplines: anthropology, sociology, and religious studies, at a truly artistic level.

Of course, there are some elements that feel outdated, since it was written in 1970; however, it allowed me to observe many subtleties and offers an approach to otherness in a way that is enriching, and that every Westerner perhaps should read in order to appreciate the subtleties of another world and another tribe.