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Town Planning in Ancient India c11: Chapter VII: Improvement and Expansion of Towns

Town Planning in Ancient India c11

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Chapter VII: Improvement and Expansion of Towns

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IN case civic requirements outgrow the capacity of the town, that is to say, when its principal thoroughfares become too narrow or insufficient for the volume of its traffic, or when their narrowness threatens to prove deleterious to the sanitation of the buildings and hamlets overhanging and adjoining them, or when considerations of civic beauty and civic art demand the extension and the widening of the main streets, or when the town becomes too small for its population, the improvement of the town becomes imperative, even at the risk of onerous financial liabilities and of encroachments on personal properties caused by demolition of the old houses and buildings. Towards this end, of late, there has been set up in almost every important metropolis a separate board under the name of Improvement Trust which systematically carries on its improvement and extension according to the best town-planning codes. These Improvement Trusts and the like bodies are very recent institutions. Two or three decades back, a town was allowed to grow in the most haphazard way possible; lanes and roads cropped up by the side of hamlets, which conformed to no plan, while its suburbs were left uncared for in the most unsalubrious condition with the result that the sanitation of the town deteriorated with its growth and development; and the town presented a very squalid appearance. Naturally enough, this amorphous state of affairs had an adverse effect upon its traffic. It is only in recent times that the municipal authorities have begun to realise the importance and desirability, both from economic and hygienic view-points, of co-ordinated and far-sighted efforts in this direction which the art of civics requires.

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In ancient times every king had his own permanent civic architect and city superintendent in his capital with their many subordinates and assistants who were wellversed in the art of planning and upkeep of cities. The civic architect, besides his other duties, looked after improvement and expansion of the town according to its requirements and the directions of the king who explained the difficulties to him. Thus we find in the Śukranītisāra¹ that the king should employ, among others, the following persons:—(1) persons versed in the art of establishing pleasure-gardens and artificial forests (ārāma-kṛtrima-vaṇakāriṇaḥ), (2) fort-architects (durgakāriṇaḥ), (3) road-constructors (mārgakārakāḥ). The technical name of the dignitary who was expert in town-planning was Sthapati. The Sthapati, among his many other qualifications, must be endowed with ability to plant a town or an edifice (sthāpanārhaḥ), knowledge of surveying (gaṇitajñaḥ), skill in draftsmanship (citrajñaḥ), capability for reconnoitering localities (sarvadeśajñaḥ), mastery over the entire science of architecture and town-planning (vāstu-vidyādhipāragaḥ); and he should be wellversed in the holy scriptures and the Purāṇas.¹ His attributes indicate beyond

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¹ Ch. II, ll. 390-396.

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¹ Mayamatam, Ch. 5, śl. 14—24.

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स्थपतिः स्थापनाईः स्यात् सर्वशास्त्रविशारदः ।
न हीनाङ्गोऽतिरिक्ताङ्गो धार्मिकस्तु दयापरः ॥ १५
अमीतस्र्ब्वोऽनसूयश्च तान्त्रिकः स्वभिजातवान् ।
गणितज्ञः पुराणज्ञः सत्यवादी जितेन्द्रियः ॥ १६
चित्रज्ञः सर्वदेशज्ञश्चादव्यालुब्धकः ।
अरोगा चाप्रमादीच सप्तव्यसनवर्जितः ॥ १७
सुनामा दृढवन्धुश्च वास्तुविद्याविपारगः ।
स्थपतेस्तस्य शिष्यो वा सूत्रग्राही सुतोऽथवा ॥ १८
स्थपत्यानुसारो च सर्वकर्मविशारदः ।
सूत्रदण्डप्रपातज्ञो मानीन्मानप्रमाणवित् ॥ १९
शैलदार्विष्टकादीनां सूत्रग्राहिवशात् तु यः ।
तक्षणात् स्थूलसूक्ष्माणां तक्षकः सतु कौशितः ॥ २०
यत्कर्मज्ञो गुणी भक्तः सर्वकर्मस्वतक्षकः ।
तक्षकस्त्वयनाच्छिन्न पर्थ्युपरि युक्तितः ॥ २१

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doubt that the town-planner or the Sthapati, coming as he did from a noble family, by his birth and literary attainments, was quite familiar with the cultural ideals and predilections, religious and social, of the people for whom he had to build the city. Such knowledge was an indispensable qualification of the Sthapati inasmuch as he had to bring out in the city an expression of the life of its citizens. Further it seems very probable that he had to carefully prepare a chart marking in it the boundaries, the roads, and scheme of their planting and the location of public buildings, tanks, and gardens. Next in rank to the Sthapati was the Sūtragrāhī (literally lineman or plumber) expert in surveying and drafting (rekhājña). He was either the son or the disciple of the Sthapati, strictly obedient to the latter. He was the superior officer (guru) over the following two. The Takshaka, the chisellor, well versed in all mechanical arts including carpentry, was the officer subordinate to the Sūtragrāhī. Under the Takshaka was placed the Vardhakī, the joiner, who was a specialist in draftsmanship and the

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इङ्गितज्ञो वर्द्धकिः प्रोक्तः सूत्रग्राह्यनुगः सदा ।
कर्मिणो निपुणाः युक्ता बलवन्तो दयापराः ॥ २२
गुरुभक्ता सदा द्रष्टाः स्वपल्याज्ञातुगाः सदा ।
तेषामेव स्थपत्याख्यो विश्वकर्मेति संस्मृतः ॥ २३

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perspective and was an adept in joinery works of all sorts. All these were permanent officers under the king. In the Arthaśāstra we find, among the other duties of the city superintendent, that he had to make a daily inspection of the reservoirs of water, of roads, of the hidden passages for going out of the city, of forts, fort-walls and their defensive works. Though we do not meet with any written records about the existence of an organised board like the modern Improvement Trust and the like, yet we may, without largely drawing upon imagination, fairly presume that the permanent officials of the king such as the civic architect, the city superintendent, together with their assistants, constituted the prototype and served the purpose of the modern institutions organised with cognate objects. The elaborate way in which the treatises on Indo-Aryan town-planning allot sites and determine the areas and orientation of roads, wards, residential buildings, the royal palace, the council house, parks, and reservoirs, and secure proper lighting and ventilation by fixing the space intervening between two houses or ascertain the number of storeys and their respective heights in case of particular buildings and edifices, conclusively establish that the master-builder possessed and exercised substantial control over all building operations in the city. So elaborate and intensive indeed was the control that even absolute private ownership of land in the city was not allowed to some extent. There seems to have been several departments or divisions of functions: one was entrusted with the construction of roads; another with tanks, gardens, artificial forests, and places; the third with fortifications; and the fourth with buildings. All these departments as also the engineers, to wit, the Sthapati and others, were under the charge of a minister, called the Gṛhādyadhipati (literally, the lord of houses and the like) who held the portfolio of superintendence and planning of the city. Śukrāchāryya says that he must attend to palaces, ditches, forts, parapets, statues, weapons, tanks, wells, and reservoirs, pipes, and other engineering works.¹ Surely the foregoing are exactly those functions with which the modern Municipalities and Improvement Trusts are concerned.

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¹ Śukranītisāra, Ch. II.

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प्रासादं परिखां दुर्गं प्राकारं प्रतिमां तथा ।
यन्त्राणि सेतुबन्धञ्च वापीं कूपं तडागकम् ॥ १५९
तथा पुष्करिणीं कुण्डं वलायुङ्गतिक्रियाम् ।
सुशिल्पशास्त्रतः सम्यक् सुरम्यन्तु यथा भवेत् ॥ १६०
कश्च जानाति यः स एव गृहाद्यधिपतिः स्मृतः ।

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In the Harivamśa,¹ we find that Viśvakarmā² was the principal architect of Śrīkṛṣṇa, the king of Dvārakā. The 98th Chapter of its Viṣṇuparva furnishes us with an account of reconstruction of the town of Dvārakā or Dvārāvatī. When the king Śrīkṛṣṇa first conceived the plan and issued instructions about the construction of Dvārāvatī, the civic architect Viśvakarmā made low obeisance to his royal pleasure with this humble remark:—"The town would not be sufficiently large for the strength of its citizens. Further extensions on a magnificent scale would have been more becoming."³ This expert opinion was not much heeded to at that time with the result that, after lapse of a few years, Śrīkṛṣṇa had to realise his shortsighted blunder and give orders for reconstruction and extension. Under the new scheme, the municipal area was doubled into eight ‘yojanas’ by breadth and twelve ‘yojanas’ by length. Though in the original city there were large streets, yet they were few in number as seems to be evident from the innumerable number of lanes in it (rathyā-koṭi-

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¹ Viṣṇuparva, Ch. 58.

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² For a discussion on the word Viśvakarmā, see the Introductory.

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³ Viṣṇuparva, Ch. 58, ll. 64-6.

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सर्वमेतत् करिष्यामि यत्त्वयाभिहितं प्रभो ।
पुरीयं जनस्यास्य न पर्याप्ता भविष्यति ।।
भविष्यति च विस्तीर्णा वङ्गिरखास्तु शोभना ।

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sahasrāḍhyā). On improvement the number of large streets was therefore placed at eight. There were constructed sixteen magnificent squares at the sixteen cross-sections.¹ The town was encompassed by a large boulevard. We can visualise the magnitudinous nature of this extension and improvement by comparison with Calcutta, the second city in the British Empire. Calcutta cannot boast of more than four large longitudinal streets, viz., the Circular Road, the College Street and its continuation, the Chitpore Road,² and the Strand Road, while the improved city of Dvārāvatī contained six large streets including the boulevard, both longitudinally and latitudinally. Defensive weapons and missiles were set up in greater number. Gardens were symmetrically planted in hundreds and the trenches were enlarged.

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¹ Viṣṇuparva, Ch. 98.

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² The Chowringee Road and the Russa Road virtually form its continuation.

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It cannot be said that the above has only a mythological significance bearing out a fertile

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अष्टयोजन विस्तीर्णमष्टादशायताम् ।
द्विगुणोपविशां च ददृशे द्वारकां पुरीम् ॥ २७
अष्टमार्गसहस्राढ्यां महाषोडशचत्वराम् ।
एकमार्गपरिच्छिन्नां साक्षादशमकृताम् ॥ २८

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May the word 'chattvara' here refer to what is technically known as the foot-path laid out alongside the modern thoroughfares for the pedestrians to walk on?

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imagination in the author, inasmuch as, even in historical periods, we come across many such instances of deliberate civic improvement. In his history of the famous Vijayanagar, Mr. Sewell, the author, notes that one of its kings, Devaray II, raised a Jaina Temple in the city, after laying out a new street called Pān Supāri Bāzār. "It passed along the north side of the Kallama and Rangaswami temples, leaving intact the Imperial office enclosure with its lofty walls and watch towers and the elephant stables on the left, skirted the Jaina temple and another temple and passed along under the rocky hills that bound this plain (of the city) on the north till it debouched on the main road. This street would be the direct approach from the old city of Anegundi to the king's palace."¹ It should be noticed here that though this street was laid out to serve the purpose of the shortest and most direct communication between the old city and the royal palace, yet unlike those of some modern Improvement Trusts, a monotonous rectitude of the streets was not enforced at the sacrifice of historical temples, of walls as well as of other important places or rocky hills. Its course was made as straight as possible, compatible with its natural and artistic alignment.

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¹ A Forgotten Empire, by Sewell, p. 78.

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The above leads us to the topic of town extension. The extension of towns has not yet received as much attention from the municipal authorities as it should have. The consequence is that in suburbs history is repeating itself. The same lack of scientific plan and foresight which characterises the uncared-for growth of the modern towns and which has necessitated the inauguration of the various Town Improvement Boards with their demolishing and financially ruinous operations, disrupting the harmony and tranquillity of civic life and carrying havoc to multitudes, runs rampant, even in this scientific age, in the suburbs. No civic architect can be blind to the future possibilities of his town. "The unkempt fringe of derelict houses and rubbish heaps that so frequently surround our modern town" not only detracts from picturesqueness and organic integrity of the city but proves very detrimental to its salubrity. Over and above, such a policy of *laissez faire* with regard to the suburbs makes for financial waste inasmuch the Improvement Trust cannot trim them to proper order without going through its demolishing functions in some measure. Such a state of affairs was well nigh impossible in the towns of ancient India, because there could not grow practically any suburb round them. The peculiar defensive works girding the ancient Indian towns in the shape of walls and ditches precluded the growth of any such clumsy outskirts about them. These walls and ditches, circumscribed sometimes by a girdle of lofty trees, combined to present the town as one isolated entity, entire and beautiful, to an ingoing visitor and contributed to the solidarity of its corporate life.

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Notwithstanding their utility as impediments to growth of unsalubrious suburbs, they stood in the way of town-expansion. And this was a serious drawback of the ancient walled cities. The civic authorities, when they saw that the town was no longer capacious enough for its population, sometimes contrived to meet this difficulty by expelling the low classes of menials like the methars (night-soilers) and washermen out of the city and locating them in quarters beyond the moats. Thus the author of the Mayamata says¹:—“A little further away from the city and surrounding it are the hamlets of all kinds of people. About two hundred daṇḍas to the east or south-east of the city are situated the huts of the caṇḍālas and the washermen.”²

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¹ Ch. 10.

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² It seems not altogether improbable that there was nothing more than a social, at best a sanitary significance at the back of this

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This was a very simple makeshift and, at the same time, was not advocated by all. Though this externment of low class people was conducive to city-sanitation, it was hardly sufficient and not at all satisfactory. Even to-day only a very small percentage of the general population of this country lives in towns. The number of low class people, who were constrained by business to permanently reside in towns in ancient times was very meagre. The necessity for enlarging towns did not arise at those periods of Indian history when people had to flock to fortified towns and perforce to live there for protection and security. Consequently exclusion of a handful of citizens, if it was at all made to relieve congestion, was in the nature of a stop-gap rather than a permanent solution of the problem. Deliberate efforts were however made to keep down the multiplication of urban population so as to minimise congestion and put off the necessity of extension. For example, the Matsya Purāṇa lays down that a large number of people should not remain in the city or fort without any

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civic externment of low class people. No attempt at relieving congestion but an inglorious hand of the caste-proud classes excommunicating the low classes—(an act which to-day has festered to the canker of untouchability in the South)—may we discern in this enforced settlement without the city-walls.

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necessity or purpose.¹ In the same strain and to the same purpose is the rule of the Devī Purāṇa: “The low class people (prakṛti) should be quartered outside the city.”² The great sage Maya, in his discourses, also endorses this view as we have seen above. It may be interesting to note here that ascetics and philosophers were made to live away from the town, probably to shun the stir and din of a town, the vortex of worldly life. Thus the Tamil poets mention that the “ascetics and philosophers also dwelt in the silent and shady groves, far away from the din and bustle of the capital.”³ These expedients could not however avail for any length of time. So the civic authorities were constrained to extend the confines of their city and the author of the Mayamata recommends extensions to the east or the south or in all directions.⁴

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¹ Ch. 217, *l.* 54.

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² Ch. 72, *l.* 52.

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³ V. Kanaksavai, Tamil Eighteen Hundred years Ago, p. 15.

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⁴ Ch. 29, *ll.* 22—23.

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The word ‘prakṛti’ carries two imports and has been used in the same book in both the senses. Technically it signifies the eight principal departments of the State (elements of sovereignty) noticed in the Dharma Śāstras, to wit, the Crown, the Ministry, the Allies, the Treasury, the Forts, the Army, and the like; it may also mean the body of high dignitaries in charge of these departments. The ordinary meaning of the word is ‘subjects of the kingdom.’ In the context the word refers perhaps to those persons who had no business requiring them to take up permanent residence in the town.

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पौराणो यदस्तु वर्धितुमिच्छेदिहस्ततस्तथात् ॥ ११ प्रागुत्तरदिशि हद्भिः शस्ता पारतस्तु वा न्याया ।

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One of the methods of town-expansion has been illustrated in the case of Dvārakā. The old walls were pulled down; the existing ditches were filled up; the surrounding area was cleared and the land adjusted for foundation of the new city. In this case it was the general practice to convert the old walls and moats into a second series of streets, as in Madurā. Old streets were widened and lengthened both ways. New building quarters were delineated by new lanes and roads. New walls were erected and fresh ditches were excavated round the city. Sometimes without levelling down the existing walls, only the ditches were filled up.

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A splendid opportunity for improvement and expansion of Madurā offered itself when the town, after a prosperous existence for many long years, was inundated. Excepting the ancient temple and its environments, situated as they were on an eminence, all were completely devastated with but faint traces left behind. The people who survived the great flood flocked to this elevated spot. This place was then called Naduvur or the central place, because this formed the centre of the old city thus laid waste. In process of time Naduvur grew in importance, commerce flourished, and the population increased beyond the capacity of its limited area. Extension of the city therefore became imperative in order to relieve congestion. "The ruler of the day caused a resurvey of the limits of the old city made from a study of the ancient traces with a view to preparing a fresh and comprehensive town-plan, which, while satisfying the present need of a growing population, would also make ample provision for future extensions of the city and secure in his scheme possibilities for artistic and harmonious development of the town within.

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"Hence he summoned his ministers and directed them to resurvey the limits of the ancient city. The temple and the surroundings were again made the starting point of a fresh plan of reconstruction of a new city which as of old grew round the temple. And with the best available advice of his time a plan was prepared taking the temple as the starting point. The plan was drawn up afresh so as to conveniently accommodate the growing population.

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"Beginning with the right side of the temple, the boundary line was formed along the natural contour, and as the measurement was completed on the left side, it enclosed a large space with the temple in the centre. Hence it was known as Alavau, i.e., a circular plan, as a serpent would make if it would bring its head and tail together round an object. The full extent of the city was about nine miles. The southern gate was made the great entrance gate of the city while the smaller gate on the northern side was its exit. Thus the city grew towards the south and had the river Vaikali as a natural boundary on the north."¹

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¹ Town Planning in Ancient Deccan, pp. 32-4.

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A third method akin to the above was to reclaim a belt of land round the city and to enclose this anew by another set of walls and ditches so as to fortify the new acquisition. The low caste people were made to settle in this area making room for the high castes and the big officers within the fold of the ancient limits. But the old walls and ditches impeded the free circulation of traffic from the centre, the most important part of the ancient cities, to the limits of the reconstituted city. Only a large number of gates in the old walls and the planting of an adequate number of arteries of communication in the extensions in alignment with these gates could obviate the difficulties. This method had this advantage over its predecessor that it augmented defensive strength and involved less financial strain and hardship on the people and consequently less dissatisfaction. It is perhaps illustrated in the town of Bharatpur where traces of one ditch after another, all encircling the primeval city can still be observed, the rank and position of the settlers diminishing as we walk further and further away from the centre of the city quite in keeping with the traditional rule of ancient India regarding allocation and distribution of urban population. The present city of Delhi, called old Delhi as distinguished from new Delhi under construction, possibly furnishes us with one more example of this method of town-extension. Therein we meet with traces of a ditch about a mile from the wall of the extant city, of which fragmentary portions only remain here and there.

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It is a sound principle of town-planning that buildings should continuously diminish in density as they recede from the centre so that fresh air may pass from the country into the interior of the town. What with centralisation of business in a town and what with its organic growth and development, this principle is more or less carried out in all towns inasmuch the suburbs are only thinly inhabited and abound in many trees and gardens. It is impossible to ascertain whether this principle was recognised in ancient India, from the meagre materials that we are able to glean together, discussion of principles being a thing never to be met with in the majority of treatises on science. Yet the allocation of different citizens in order of their ranks, castes and subcastes, these diminishing in degree and order from the centre outward, and the different structures of houses peculiar to each of them, their heights and dimensions, as well as their number lessening with their distance from the centre, and also the rings of girdles encircling the city one after another with intervening plots planted with gardens and orchards, may be recalled in justification of the conjecture that this principle was fairly realised in the Indo-Aryan cities. The town of Vijayanagar is an instance in point. This city was founded in 1336 A.D. It was enlarged by Ajarao, the grandson of Bukkaraya who succeeded Harihar Deva to the throne. "This king made in the city of Vijayanagar many walls and towers and enclosed it anew. The king desiring to increase that city and make it the best in the kingdom, determined to bring it to a very large river which was at a distance of five leagues away. So he did, damming the river itself with great boulders. By means of this water they made, round about the city, a quantity of gardens and orchards and great groves of trees and vineyards and many plantations of lemons, oranges, and roses, and other trees which in this country bear good fruits.¹ Reading this in the light of detailed description of the city given by the same traveller, reproduced elsewhere,² one will realise how reasonable is the attempt made above to credit the ancient Indians with some acquaintance with the principle. It is to be observed here that beauty, sanitation, and usefulness of the city were considerably enhanced as a result of extension of the city executed on such a magnificent scale. It reflects great credit upon the circumspection and wisdom of the king and his civic architects. Even in these days we scarcely come across any case of such splendid scheme of town improvement carried in such magnitudinous proportions. The ancient city of Kaveripumpattinam also illustrates this method of distributing houses. "The plan was to have an outer square consisting of gardens and houses; a second square consisting of market places, workshops and so on; and smaller squares towards the centre where the more expansive houses and the palace and other public buildings were located."

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¹ Vide Chronicle of Fernazo Nuniz, p. 10.

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² Vide Appendix.

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In a large number of cases the method was impracticable. The majority of ancient Indian towns were situated on the banks of a river or on the sea-shore so that their expansion in all directions was out of question. I am inclined to think that it was due to this peculiar position that the idea originated of planting a new city in the shape of a large ward or muhalla, by the side of the old one, one of its side-moats coming in between the two and forming the one extremity of the new city. This sort of a supplementary faubourg by the side of a principal city, as illustrated in Babarkhana described below, was technically known as a Dāmaḍa. The city of Purī is supposed by competent observers to have once possessed such a sub-town the ruins of which are still traceable. In some instances the interposing moats and walls were levelled to the ground leaving an open space between the cities which were brought within the same walls and moats and the two cities looked like two detached portions of the same city. V. Kanaksavai gives extracts from the description of such a city given by the Tamil poets.¹ "Kaveripaddinam or Pukar was built on the northern bank of the Kaveri river (near its mouth) which was then a broad and deep stream into which heavily laden ships entered from the sea without slackening sail. The town was divided into two parts, one of which was called Maruvur Pakkam and adjoined the sea-coast, and the other which was situated to the west of it was called Paddini Pakkam. Between these two portions of the city was a large area of open ground, planted with trees at regular intervals, where the great market was held.” The same author informs us that Paddini Pakkam contained the royal palace. Indeed it had all the elements of a complete city where all classes of people lived. Maruvur Pakkam was nothing but an emporium, a centre of trade and commerce, frequented by foreigners such as the Yavan merchants. The character of the difference between the population of the two parts shows that one was an appendage or supplement to the other, by way of an extension. The modern prototype of this ancient town may be found in Chittagong where the Double Moorings side near the mouth of the river Karnafuli constitutes the harbour of the town. It has already developed into an emporium of note. It lies to the south-west of the old town separated by a large tract of land interspersed with villages and paddy fields. These will, in course of a few years, with the growth of trade and accentuation of urban tendencies, be closetted into a single whole.

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¹ *Vide* Tamil Eighteen Hundred Years Ago, pp 24-5.

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Here we cannot positively lay our finger at any deliberate scheme of extension. It may owe its inception to the natural growth of the city, to its need for a port or haven. But since both the halves of the city of Kaveripumpaddinam were defended by walls and moats, one may legitimately lend more credence to the other view. Imperative necessity of defence precludes the probability of unconscious growth of the port.

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Closely allied with this is the following type of a suburb. About a league away from the city of Vijayanagar stood the small town of Nagalpur connected with the main city by a “street as wide as a place of tourney, with both sides lined throughout with rows of houses and shops where they sold every thing; and all along this road were many trees that the king had commanded to be planted, so as to afford shade to those that passed along. On this road he had commanded to be erected a very beautiful temple of stone and there were other pagodas that the captains and great lords had caused to be erected.”¹ This town of Nagalpur (literally a new city) served the double purpose of an extension of the main city of Vijayanagar as well as of guarding the latter, situated as it was at the mouth of the defile between the mountains encircling the city from a distance. A town of this nature was technically known as Vāhirikā.¹ The following instance is more probative. In the ruins of Taxila, “outside the northern wall of the Sirkap city, was a suburb, now known as Babarkhana or the Kaccha Kot from the fact that it is defined by earthen ramparts only. This suburb has a circuit of rather more than a mile and a quarter, and is enclosed on the west by a bend of the Tamra Nala, above which its fortifications rise to a height of about 40 feet. This suburb was inhabited by low class people of menial profession.”² This is another confirmatory instance of separate provision for the low class people outside the city that we have already noticed. These branch towns bear a close resemblance to the ‘colonae’ of the ancient Romans which were small quasi-fortresses established for accommodating surplus population or discharged soldiers.

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¹ Narrative of Domingo Pæs, the Portuguese traveller; vide Sewell.

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¹ Both the varieties of sub-towns thrown out by a principal town, viz, the Dāmaḍa and the Vāhirikā, were also known as Śākhā-nagara (literally branch-town). The Śavdakalpadruma gives the following definition of this subsidiary town: “The town which is constructed in the vicinity or the outskirts of the main city, to accommodate its overflow population, is termed branch-town (Śākhā-nagara) from analogy with the branch of a tree.” मूलनगरऽसम्भितस्य जनौघस्य स्थानाय मूलनगरस्य समीपे वङ्गे वा यदन्यत् पुरं नगरान्तरं क्रियते तत् शाखानगरं मूलनगरस्य तरुस्थानीयस्य शाखिव । अभिविन्द- रमणमप्य । स्यादभिविन्दिरमणं शाखानगरमित्यपि । इति विकाण्डशेषः । इति तट्टीकाया भरतः ॥ अपि च । आरभ्य मूलनगरादपरं हि यत् । तदभिविन्द- रमणं शाखानगरमित्यपि ॥ इति शब्दरावलो ।

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² A Guide to Taxila.

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One other solution was suggessed by the peculiar plan of some of the ancient Indian cities. Every city was a conglomeration of wards or muhallas, each muhalla being self-contained and enclosed by walls. When extension became inevitable, it was easy to add some similar muhallas to the original number. This is suggested by the orthodox method of enlarging the diagram of interlineal chambers. If it is necessary to draw a square figure, say of nine plots deep, then the rule is to add two rows of similar plots, one to the east and another to the north of the figure of eight plots deep.¹ “The capital must have within it space for the laying out of pallīs, grāmas, kumbhas etc., *i.e.*, wards.”² “A natural consequence of the consolidation of the Aryan tribal system into these larger states and kingdoms was the gradual development of the village settlements into larger towns and cities planned on the same principles in which wards or village units, were grouped round the royal palace and the citadel.”¹ When a cluster of villages was taken up and turned into a city, the intervening space between any two villages was trimmed with spacious parks (the sacred groves) and stately avenues. Mr. Havell thinks that Pāṭalīputra was nothing but an aggregation of such villages due to the centralisation of the social and economic activities of the self-governing Indo-Aryan village communities.² This was the way whereby the humble town of Karṇāvatī was turned into a gigantic capital of Ahmedabad by Ahmed Shah, the grandson and successor of Muzzafar Shah, the founder of the Guzrati Dynasty. This fine city which was laid out, presumably according to ancient Indo-Aryan traditions was divided into 360 muhallas or wards.

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¹ *Cf.* प्राच्योदीच्यकोष्टादिसंप्रवद्धा क्रमान्नयेत् । शिल्परत्ने षष्ठाध्याये २६५ पंक्तिः ।

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² Śukranītisāra, Ch. I, *l.* 430. It should be noted here that this grāma is not a modern village. It is a technical term for a locality with certain definite measurements and corresponds to the *insulæ* of an ancient Greek town as well as to the municipal wards of a modern city.

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¹ Havell, History of Aryan Rule in India, p. 38.

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² Havell, Ancient and Medieval Architecture, p. 24.

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The present town of Srirangam gives us the best clue to the mode of evolution and expansion of Indo-Aryan cities. The history of its development cannot be better depicted than in the words of Prof. Patrick Geddes, the famous town-planner of modern times :—“Here in ancient days there was a local shrine, central to the island and its villages. Some thoughtful teacher at one time, some saintly soul at another, became an influence extending beyond the island and pilgrims began to come. A little temple was raised to include the shrine and its court would be inhabited by its holy man doubtless with his disciples. Outside these gather more dwellings; first the huts of sanyasins, later more permanent, and increasingly of Brāhmaṇ character. Granaries are needed, and arise first as round huts of the old type still common as dwellings in Madras, and surviving as corn-stores in Bengal villages, though they are superseded as dwellings by rectangular plans. The whole area becomes included within a larger wall with a southward gateway,—(on the third wall from the centre). Within the enclosure and outside it also, further developments proceeded, both material and spiritual, as of increasing granaries and additional shrines. Outside arise new dwellings of large magnitude and space; in time these likewise became spiritualised in property and use; and at length transformed as well. New shrines thus appear, and here also, though probably far later, the north-east space becomes the hall of a thousand columns. The new rectangular wall is more carefully oriented than its predecessors; three gateway Gopuras are built, the largest to the eastward. There is now a clearer differentiation of temple and town, of sacred and secular; for a new street is kept clear all round the wall presumably as a Car-street, and with house-lots opposite. These are to-day of very varying breadth, suggesting that those now narrow may have arisen by division. Another wall again was raised to surround this clear rectangle of dwellings facing the Car-street next the temple wall; and this is given four gateways towards the cardinal points but these were comparatively small, in subordination to those within, and on three sides of the previous temple enclosures. But outside this a new town-extension is provided. This is again a rectangular street system parallel to the last with a fresh Car-street, and new houses on either hand and lots less deep. Evidently with city growth caste distinctions and wealth requirements being more emphasised, the lower and poorer castes are kept outside the larger gateways of this wall; and their houses cluster specially to the south and east, but not to the less spacious west. These poorer dwellings spread and subdivide from these gates on either hand, in lots of small and irregular size, and with a norrow lane running obliquely north by east, from near the east Gopuram.

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"Finally comes the great completion by Tirumulu, king of builders. In the south Bazar it will be seen that existing properties were respected as they stand mostly facing northward towards the road along the south wall. But this road is norrow, so instead of wasting compensation and upsetting business (as modern municipalities and their engineers in the industrial age of lapsed planning have done, and still largely incline to do), the sensible course is taken, and also the most practical for business and communications, more seemly so, that of making new Bazar Street east and west; and of allocating new plots of larger size on each side, upon the land hitherto unoccupied. Some houses next to the wall outside also a small temple (perhaps private, perhaps for the humbler caste hitherto outside) seems to have already sprung up on the west side. The new street northward is continued with houses on either sides; but on the east the open space next the wall suffices; and also on the north, so far as existing irregular holdings allow. This new enclosure, as yet the final one, is thus kept in good proportion. Its rectangular wall is built, and the four great Gopuras, North, South, East, and West, are now begun, of course, in true alignment to their predecessors. These gateway towers are on a scale unparalleled as their megalithic beginnings show; but they remain unfinished like other works of Tirumulu owing to his untimely and tragic death and as too monumental for the means and inclinations of his successors.

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"This same process of the Temple guiding and including its city developments, is even now going on, clearly and simply, at the adjacent smaller Śiva Temple town, a mile or so eastward. Outside the triple temple walls, runs the Car-street, with houses of its caste-community. A great wall, with four Gopuras, encloses the whole; and a secondary street surrounds this fourth wall, and is thus obviously included within the temple system, and so far sharing its sanctity. Here then is plainly a second Srirangam, and still in progress.

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"This mode and process of growth is so essentially regular, so natural yet so reasoned, so peculiarly defined, so monumentally organised, through zone after zone of growth in succeeding centuries."¹

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¹ Vide the Modern Review, March, 1919.

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It may not be out of place to observe in conclusion that in modern times when peace and tranquillity reign throughout India under British hegemony and overlordship, hostile invasions and pillaging incursions are out of question, so that walls and moats,—the old fortifications,—have lost their original significance and importance. Hence in almost all ancient towns, the ditches have been allowed to be silted up beyond recognition and walls to lie in ruins with meagre traces here and there. In some cases, as in Baroda and Dabhoi, the walls have been deliberately pulled down and the ditches have been carefully filled up by the authorities. The consequence is that towns have been allowed to expand beyond their old boundaries without any plan or regulation. Thus “outside the survival of old religion and old governmental control respectively, the town has lost its unity and order, and begins to break down towards that congested slumdom, which is now so largely destroying it.”

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