Town Planning in Ancient India c15.57

c15.57

“ Close to these pagodas is a triumphant car covered with carved work and images, and on one day in each year during a festival they drag this through the city in such streets as it can traverse. Going forward you have a broad and beautiful street, full of rows of fine houses and streets of the sort I have described, and it is to be understood that the houses belong to the men rich enough to afford such. In this street live many merchants, and there you find all sorts of rubies and diamonds and emeralds, and pearls, and seed pearls, and cloths and every other sort of thing there is on earth and that you may wish to buy.....At the end of this street you have another gate with its wall, which wall goes to meet the wall of the second gate of which I have spoken, in such sort that this city has three fortresses, with another which is the king's palace. Then when this gate is passed you have another street where there are many craftsmen, and they sell many things ; and in this street there are two small temples. There are temples in every street, for these appertain to institutions like the confraternities, you know of in our parts, of all the craftsmen and merchants; but the principal and greatest pagodas are outside the city.....A fair is held every day in different parts of the city. At the end of this street is the Moorish quarter which is at the very end of the city.