Town Planning in Ancient India c12.s4.10

c12.s4.10

It should be borne in mind that the villages in question were quite different from the existing villages of Bengal. These are results of unconscious spread of human habitation, in the wake of increasing population, into soil which was originally overgrown with woods and thickets. There is no vestige of conscious planning in the Bengal villages. But the villages under consideration were something like towns in miniature. There was the same juxtaposition of house blocks raised in rows; the same sort of folk-planning as in the town. Hence while in Bengal a garden-village will be out of question, every village here being a settlement amidst trees and woods, in the villages of ancient India—prototypes of which are still visible in Southern India and in some parts of Northern India—it was thought possible to lay out what is known as a garden-village exactly like a garden-city. Mr. Venkatarama Ayyar furnishes us with a picture of such a garden-village, corroborating his general description by many examples from the Deccan. He says that such garden-villages were planted round a temple either of Śiva or of Viṣṇu or other holy Divinity commanding parochial, and not unoften extra-parochial, reverence and influence. This exogenous lay-out exactly answers to that of a temple-city or a garden-city. "The temple may be ever so modest a structure; but it must have a tank adjoining it; and also a flower-garden and an open space about it. And the practice of building houses abutting round such an open square or in front of the tank adjoining the temple is very useful from a hygienic point of view, for admitting fresh air and light to each and every home.