The City Eternal: What Remains, What Endures
If you walk Dvaraka today—whether centuries from now or in whatever now readers find themselves—you will encounter a city that is not particularly famous, not notably wealthy, not militarily powerful. Yet if you listen carefully, if you pay attention to how people speak to each other, how conflicts are addressed, how beauty is honored alongside bread, how the young are taught to think rather than to obey, you will recognize something remarkable.
The city still celebrates Deepavali, and the lamps still burn bright. The Archive still grows, though it has become vast and somewhat difficult to navigate. The gardens still thrive, tended now by people who have never heard Krishna's voice yet carry forward the principles he embodied. The Artisan's Guild still preserves and evolves craft traditions. The councils and assemblies still meet, deliberate, sometimes struggle, and move forward. The schools still awaken young people to their capacity for thought.
Much has changed. New challenges have emerged that the founders could not have imagined. Technologies have transformed how people live and work. Populations have shifted. The network of inspired cities has expanded and contracted and taken on forms none of the founders would recognize. Yet in the midst of this constant transformation, something has endured: a commitment to a certain way of being together.
That commitment is not perfect. Dvaraka still faces problems. Corruption occasionally surfaces and is addressed. Injustice occasionally hides in the normal functioning of things and must be uncovered and corrected. Individuals still struggle with greed and pride, with the temptation to exploit and dominate. But these struggles happen within a framework that refuses to normalize exploitation, that insists on justice, that keeps returning to the question: Is this who we want to be?
The greatest legacy of Krishna and Pradyumna and all those who came after them is not any particular policy or institution. It is the cultivation of a people who have learned to ask hard questions about themselves, who value honesty about their failures, who understand that their future depends on present choices, and who are willing to do the difficult work of building community consciously, thoughtfully, and with love.
If there is hope for cities and communities—and there is—it lies in this possibility: that ordinary people, gathered together with a commitment to something beyond themselves, can create spaces where human flourishing is possible, where dignity is preserved, where participation is real. Dvaraka is not special because it alone achieved this; it is remarkable because it has done so continuously, across centuries, in the face of countless challenges, not through perfection but through persistent, humble commitment to principles worth living for. And in that, it offers not a model to copy exactly but a proof that another way is possible—that a city can be built on love, and that such a city can endure.