Town Planning in Ancient India c12.s2.44

c12.s2.44

Mānasāra’s description of the village is too crude and the MSS. I have access to is too erroneous for a literal rendering of it. What follows is a free but substantially correct summary of the description. The village is either square or oblong in form. It is divisible into the mystic figure Paramaśāyika, Caṇḍita or Sthaṇḍila and the Paiśācha annulus is determined by this division and demarcated by a boulevard going round it. Within this round the space is divided either into four, nine or sixteen wards by a net-work of appropriate number of highways, the arrangement being respectively one versus one, two versus two, and three versus three. These highways are variously widened to six, seven, eight, nine, or eleven daṇḍas. In the wards again roads are planted according to the chess-board system. But all the wards are not divided into equal number of plots by these roads. One is divided into nine plots, another into sixteen, the third into twenty-five, and so on. This distinction in the division is accounted for by the degree of rank and wealth of the persons that are to occupy the ward. Thus the ward of the very rich and of those of the highest rank contains the biggest plots, that is, is divided into the lowest number of them.