Champaner-Pavagadh, Gujarat, India: Challenges and Responses in Cultural Heritage Planning and Design.

This article focuses on challenges and responses in cultural heritage planning and design in Champaner-Pavagadh, Gujarat, India. It received the World Heritage status in 2004. The site is immense, spreading over six square kilometres, and covers the partially buried fifteenth century Islamic capital city of Champaner and the sacred hill, Pavagadh, a regional pilgrim center to the Hindus. Its religious importance caters to the heavy pilgrim traffic. The presence of local communities and short visits by over two million pilgrims to the hill annually adds a significant dimension in cultural heritage planning. While Champaner is the preserve of archaeologists and historians, Pavagadh is of interest primarily to cultural geographers and religious historians. Islamic Champaner and Hindu/Jain Pavagadh can be seen in oppositional terms, interests of tourists conflicting with those of pilgrims, and those of preservationists with forces of development. However, the complex web of relationships, both man-made and ecological, tie the site together into a whole. At present, the archaeological remains of Pavagadh and Champaner remain neglected and off the beaten track of pilgrims whose knowledge of the past is derived from timeless mythology. About 35 standing monuments are currently protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, 20 on the hill and 15 below in plains.