[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) › c12.s4 # Town Planning in Ancient India c12.s4: Chaturmukha Town Planning in Ancient India c12.s4 - **Language:** English ### Chaturmukha ### [c12.s4.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.1) blocks (Nārāyaṇa)¹ should not be constructed on the car-streets; else, it will provoke perdition. ### [c12.s4.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.2) ¹ Does ‘narāyaṇa’ mean passages of men, i.e. foot-paths intended for pedestrian traffic? ### [c12.s4.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.3) (9) Prakīrṇaka :—According to Mayamuni there are five varieties of this type. The number of easterly roads is fixed at four, while that of the transverse, that is, northerly roads, varies from eight to twelve respectively in either of the five plans. According to the Kāmikāgama, the number of northerly streets varies from four to seventeen; and yet it fixes the number of various plans at five like the Mayamata. Prakīrṇaka really means a ‘chāmara’, a fan made with big chowries (hairy tails) of yaks fastened to a handle. ### [c12.s4.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.4) (10) Parāga :—This village, according to Mayamuni, possesses six easterly streets and eighteen to twenty-two northerly ones. The Kāmikāgama, on the other hand, would lay out in it six to twenty-three northerly streets confining the gradual increment to unity and six cross-roads facing east. It is a small village but cob-webbed with such a large number of streets that facilities of traffic and locomotion are comparatively largest and easiest in it as the name implies. ### [c12.s4.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.5) (11) Śrīpratiṣṭhita :—Mayamuni defines it to be a village consisting of eight principal highways facing the east and of northerly streets numbering twenty-eight to thirty-two. The Kāmikāgama, while prescribing the same number of east-to-west streets, varies the northerly streets from eight to thirty-six, probably with common addition of four, thus bringing the number of varieties down to eight. The radical significance of the name is that Śrī, the Goddess of Fortune, is established and permanently secured in it. ### [c12.s4.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.6) (12) Sampatkāra :—This and the following three are varieties of villages especially noted in the Kāmikāgama. It consists of five streets running from east to west crossed by twenty-one transverse streets. The etymological meaning of the name indicates that it is very auspicious and secures wealth and prosperity. ### [c12.s4.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.7) (13) Kumbhakam :—Its shape is like a pitcher as the word denotes. It is either circular or polygonal. The number of streets in it is many and they run parallel to the contour. ### [c12.s4.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.8) (14 & 15) Śrīvatsa and Vaidika :—In both these types, there is no limitation to the number of streets but in the latter, it is obligatory that each street should be lined with houses on both sides. In this plan, the houses are allowed to be built up in more storeys than one. ### [c12.s4.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.9) The descriptions of the last seven villages vouchsafed to us in the Mayamata or in the Kāmikāgama are very meagre, but one feature to be marked in all of them is that the number of northerly streets in all the types far exceed that of the easterly streets. This means that the villages were elongated east to west and east-to-west streets are longer so that winds could not blow up clouds of dust, while the buildings were open to free ventilation which in India generally runs from north to south or south to north. ### [c12.s4.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.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. ### [c12.s4.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4.11) "Thus came into existence a number of villages each with a central temple and a tank and a garden adjoining it. Streets were then formed round the temples and the houses were built for the use of those temple servants to whom it was an advantage to live near their place of work. And likewise, rows of houses grew in well-ordered plan on all sides of the tank. And as fresh temples were constructed, villages grew in the same manner on the model of the older villages. And so on, villages and cities with temples and public baths were studded throughout the length and breadth of Southern India.” Mr. Ayyar illustrates his description with instances of South Indian villages. It should be observed that the villages, from their nucleus,—the shrine—to their full-fledged state, were not laid out at once on a deliberate plan, but in their exogenous evolution traditional town-planning instincts inherent in the people asserted themselves with remarkable precision and expression. In all probability the village Viśvakarmās had a large hand in the planning of the temple as well as in the development of the village by lay-out of successive house-blocks. ## Linked texts (2) - [Kāmikāgama](https://indike.org/pramana/in.sampradaya.saiva.agama.siva.kamika) — Sanskrit - [Mayamata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.art.silpa.dravida.mayamata) — Maya, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c12.s4) · Pramāṇa