In India, there are religious practices intersecting with the process of urbanization at various levels. This paper looks at the practice of tree worship which continues to be a part of everyday life here. Specifically, it looks at how the Peepul tree (Ficus Religiosa) shrine with its serpent stones and the raised platform around it (katte) contributes to the territorial production of urban space in the city of Bangalore. Based on a study of 10 kattes in the city, it finds that these urban spaces belong either to a process of territorialization by the local community or its deterritorialization by the government. The paper builds a theoretical argument for how the katte as a ‘human activity node’ contributes to an ‘urban web’ which is categorized here as the physical layer. It finds that the Peepul tree could enable a ‘network of relations’, termed as the social layer. It suggests that the information fields generated within these layers influences collective memory of the people. Finally, the paper argues that the two layers acting together can help formulate an urban design model that can minimize deterritorialization.

The author is grateful to Prof. Nikos Salingaros, Professor of Mathematics, University of Texas at San Antonio for his critical and insightful comments. Thanks are due to Suresh Bhagavatula for his advice and thoughtful comments throughout the development of this paper, and to Prem Chandavarkar, Ashok Krishnan and Lathasshree K.S. for generously sharing their ideas and thoughts. Finally, this paper has benefited immensely from the enthusiasm and encouragement that came from Gladwin Joseph and Pallavi Varma Patil at the start of this research.