Cemeteries and the Plurality of Death

These mid-19th century "Mahomedan tombs" exemplify the variety of funerary traditions in Bombay.

Although cemeteries are more macabre than sites of industry or leisure, they are just as necessary. Various areas intended to memorialize the dead appear throughout the map, from Hindu burning grounds to Parsi “Towers of Silence”—stone towers upon which bodies were placed, and subsequently excarnated by vultures.

The "Times" map depicts cemeteries scattered throughout Bombay, many in close proximity.

This preponderance of cemeteries may be linked to Bombay’s then-recent history of plague. Medical historian David Arnold notes that Bombay "suffered severely from smallpox epidemics during the 1860s and 1870s, reaching a peak in 1875-77” [1]. A subsequent bubonic plague epidemic in the 1890s would have further devastated its population, possibly requiring a large-scale expansion of the number of burial plots in the city.

The map’s many cemeteries may also reflect a desire by Times editors to respect Bombay’s religious diversity. Used as a reference, the map would be helpful for people of many faiths—Islam, Hinduism, Christianity—to locate their respective sacred spaces. Again, the Times’ agenda in creating the map seems founded in an understanding of Bombay as a pluralistic society.

[1] Arnold, David. Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-century India. Berkeley: U of California, 1993. Web. 21 Nov 2016.