Mapping the growth of a Mughal period township: Vrindavan

This effort at mapping the growth of the township of Vrindavan, the famous holy place near Mathura in Western Uttar Pradesh in Mughal times is an exercise in local history and geography made possible by a number of documents surviving in the hands of the Gosa’ins (Goswamis) of the Chaitanya sect at Vrindavan. We see how from around mid-sixteenth century temples began to be constructed and kunjs (groves containing huts) began to be established in the vicinity of some small earlier settlements (Nagla Nagu, Dosaich, Nagla Gopa, etc.), which ultimately became parts of the single township of Vrindavan. The story we are able to trace shows how it will be a mistake to hold the society and economy of that age to have been a static one