PAUL SCOTT'S "THE RAJ QUARTET" | Where is Mayapore ? ("Finished Goods Inventory")

Mayapore is like the lamasery Shangri-La in the Valley of the Blue Moon in Tibet in James Hilton's "Lost Horizon".  Everyone knows it doesn't exist, but wants to know where it is.

Inferring the Location of Mayapore

Willingly suspend your disbelief and accompany me to the probable location of Mayapore.  What follows are textual suggestons and commentary on them indicating or intimating the location of Mayapore.

Page I-1=6-7:  "... in the alluvial plain between the mountains of the north and the plateau of the south."  This is a description of the Bibighar Gardens, and hence of Mayapore.  The alluvial plain would be the long valley of the Ganges river system known as the Ganges Plain, the mountains of the north would be the Himalayas, and the plateau of the south would be the Chota Nagpur Plateau.   This covers a lot of real estate, and is perhaps like one saying, "I know where he lives, he lives in New England."  On the other hand, this description rules out much, much more real estate than it includes.  It offers a firm starting point for a calculated approximation.  (Source:  9705NG map titled "South Asia"; 9705NG = May 1997 National Georgraphic.)  Only during my third reading of the Raj Quartet did I notice this huge clue in the first paragraph of the first volume of the story !!

Pages I-269=270:  essentially Colin Lindsey's journey from Meerut to Ambala to somewhere near Lahore ( I-269=29-30 ).  This progression suggests as Lindsey got physically farther from Hari Kumar, he became more psychologically distant from him.  The narrative never quite expresses this psychological aspect, but it seems strongly suggested.  When Lindsey finally does get to Mayapore, Kumar is invisible to him.  For a long time, I had the physical direction of this metaphor backwards, because the inversion seemed to fit better:  i. e., as Lindsey approaches and gets nearer, Kumar recedes more and more and finally disappears upon Lindsey's arrival.  I assumed Lindsey was approaching Kumar as he progressed from Meerut to Lahore through Ambala.  This was clearly incorrect.  Returning to the text at I-269=30-33, which reads, "In his first letter he said that on the map Meerut didn't look too far away from Mayapore.  In his second he said he wondered if he would ever be close enough to make a meeting possible."  This is not the sequence of communication of one who is moving closer to a contemplated destination, rather the words of one moving away from such a place.  So we can safely infer two things from this narrative.  First, Mayapore is generally to the east of Meerut.  Second, it is not particularly close to Meerut.

Page I-1=276:  "... one could usually get away, down to Mussoorie or up to Darjeeling.  It was not too far by train from Calcutta either ...." | These locations are described with reference to Mayapore. | Mussoorie is not depicted on the 9705NG map; however, it is located in northwesternmost Uttar Pradesh on a line about 25% of the way from Dehra Dun to Uttarkashi; it is about 150 miles southeast of Simla, and about 150 miles due east of Rajpura. |  I cannot make much out of the part of the statement, "down to Mussoorie".  Mussoorie is in the NW, and Darjeeling is in the NE.  Also, it is typical to refer to locations along or near a river in terms of the direction of the river's flow.  Since the Ganges river flows eastward, one would expect the reference also to be "up" to Mussoorie, as in up-river.  However, "up" or "down" could also implicitly contemplate the location of some higher civil or military authority, and, if so, popular usage would seem to trump actual physical elevation and directional flows of a river.  Finally, it is conceivable that Mussoorie lies in a deep valley, so that there would be a tendency to converse about it in "downward" terms.

The last clue that enable the reader to place Mayapore fairly closely appears at I-38=19-20, where it is explained that "The Dibrapur mines, so-called, were now administered from Aligarh in the adjoining district of the province.   (Aligarh is approximately 100 miles southeast of Delhi-New Delhi.)  Assuming an administrative center would be no more than 25 miles from its subject mines, and adding to this the approximately 75 miles Crane had to travel to get to Kotali and Dibrapur, we can safely assume that the fictional Mayapore is around 100 miles from Aligarh, and, based on Lindsey's progression, generally to the east of Aligarh.  Approximately 100 miles east-south-east of Aligarh is a town named Mainpuri; another 100 miles to the east is the city of Lucknow.

After a rereading of RQ, and after reading "Paul Scott:  A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet", by Hilary Spurling, I believe Mayapore is probably in Uttar Pradesh (once or twice in the quartet referred to as "UP"), in the Ganges Plain.  It could be on the Ganges, or it could be on a tributary feeding into the Ganges.  My sense is that it is generally somewhere near and to the west of Lucknow, due south of the southwest corner of Nepal.  Spurling tells us that Scott would never disclose a more exact location for this fictional town.   A very strong suspicion of a very probable general location will have to suffice, at least for this writer.  My inquiry is over.  The moment of absolute certainty never arrives for most matters of life, and this is one of them.  For this writer the issue of the location of Mayapore is a settled one, at least as settled as uncertainly can ever be characterized as settled.

One particular fact needs to be disposed of.  On a very detailed map of India I scrutinized at the Central Denver Public Library on 041228TU evening, I found a Mayapur about 100 km or 60 miles due north of Calcutta.  It is not depicted on the 9705NG map.  Navadwip, Santipur, and Krishnanagar form a downward-pointing triangle.   Mayapur is located on the 9705NG map at the "N" of Navadwip in West Bengal.  Interestingly, it lies on a sharp, short southward loop of the Hugli (also spelled Hooghly) River, which eventually flows southward through Calcutta into the the Bay of Bengal.  This river may be a branch of the Ganges, which enters the Bay of Bengal to the east of the mouth of the Hooghly.  I believe this is all the delta of the Ganges river system.  The point is Mayapur is on a river, Darjeeling is to the north.  The only part that doesn't fit is the "down to Mussoorie" bit at I-1=276. | I have ruled this particular location out because of its proximity to Calcutta.  Also, discussions of Crane's regional travels indicate at I-1=4 and I-1=26 that she used the car for the 75-mile trip to Dibrapur, but no longer would use it for the trip to Calcutta.  It would make no sense to use the car for a slightly longer trip to Dibrapur, but not for the 60-mile trip to Calcutta.  Moreover, this location is more in the Ganges River Delta and not an alluvial plain, with the Chota Nagpur Plateau more to the west than the south.  In conclusion, this town of Mayapur must be ruled out.

Detailed Map of Mayapore

Scott hand-sketched his fictional town; a reproduction of this sketch appears on page 312 of Spurling's biorgraphy.