Town Planning in Ancient India c12.26

c12.26

The Mayamata sets forth the dimensions of the villages in two ways. According to their peripheral measurements, villages are of five kinds : the smallest village is twenty thousand daṇḍas in circumference and the contour of the biggest measures 1,00,000 daṇḍas; the perimeter of any other intermediate village can be calculated out by adding 20,000 daṇḍas to that of the preceding one. One residential block, generally inhabited by kinsmen (kutumva-bhūmi), measures one-twentieth of the whole village. Lengths of villages again admit of forty varieties ranging from 500 to 20,000 daṇḍas by a common difference of 500 daṇḍas. The breadth may be 300, 500, 700, 900, 1000, 1500, or 2000 daṇḍas.¹ Mānasāra also gives several such varieties of measurements. I need hardly add here that these were rather optional; but their wide range would but give a large scope for choice.