[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Architecture and art](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art) › [Town Planning in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925) › c10.2 # Town Planning in Ancient India c10.2 Town Planning in Ancient India c10.2 - **Language:** English ### [c10.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c10.2) WHEN the principal streets called Rājapathas are laid out, the whole city area is divided by them into ‘grāmas’ or muhallas, i.e., wards.¹ It has already been stated that street-planning was preceded by, and was therefore generally based upon another scheme of dividing the town or village known as Padavinyāsa. Ordinarily the streets lay along the lines of this division, so that the wards marked off by the principal streets were exactly identical with the blocks lined off in padavinyāsa.² Distribution of professions and castes as well as allotment of sites were made entirely with reference to padavinyāsa, a pada or a block being set apart for a caste or profession. The orthodox rules of the Śilpa Śāstras require that the number of ‘padas’ or quadrangular plots in any place should vary from one to one thousand and twenty-four,—a very large range indeed,—in accordance with its area and structural requirements. The mode of division into padas is by drawing two to thirty-three rectilinear parallel lines and as many transverse parallel lines. These thirty-two schemes of division are distinguished by as many different names according to the number of squares into which the whole area is partitioned out. And their names in serial order are Sakala, Pechaka, Pīṭha, Mahāpīṭha, etc., ending with the thirty-second Indrakānta. “The whole scheme has been arranged in such a manner that in each case the number of partitions corresponds to the square of the serial number. The eighth plot which is called Caṇḍita or Maṇḍuka comprises a division into sixty-four squares, while by the ninth plot which bears the technical name of Paramaśāyika, the ground is divided into eighty-one squares.”¹ In the case of a city or a village the mystic diagrams which are generally drawn up on the ground, thereby dividing it into appropriate numbers of plots, are Sthaṇḍila (of 49 squares), Caṇḍita or Maṇḍuka, or Paramaśāyika.² For this reason and also because the plots are assigned to different presiding deities—(the authors of the Śilpa Śāstras, in folk-planning and allocation of sites or squares, refer to them in the name of their respective presiding deities)—it is essential that the scheme of dedicating the plots should be clearly understood. - [Previous: c9.89](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c9.89) - [Next: c10.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c10.3) - [Up: c10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c10) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c10.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c10.2) · Pramāṇa