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.