Town Planning in Ancient India c15.63

c15.63

I venture to think that the Aryan traditions of town-planning preserved in the Śilpa Śāstras and handed down from generation to generation were recognised and followed in the planning of the city of Vijayanagara. This can be ascertained by comparison with the description of ancient cities found in such ancient epics as the Rāmāyaṇa, the Mahābhārata and other treatises chronologically following them. The city of Ayodhyā abounded in gardens and mangoe-orchards.¹ Bharata, the son of Kyakeyī, founded two towns in the country of Gāndhāra (this included the West Punjab and East Afghanistan), one Taxus at Taxila and another Puskal at Puskalwat. Treasures in large quantities and gardens of various kinds embellished both the cities. Intensive commerce and a great concourse of people lent fame to both. In both of them shops were symmetrically arranged in rows on both sides of the main thoroughfares. Many splendid shrines, useful trees like tāl (palmyra), tamāl, tilak, bakul and the like rendered these cities pleasing to the eye. Five years were spent in their foundation.² Mathurā is also described to have been rich in gardens and groves (udyānavana-sampanna). We learn from the Harivaṃśa that Dvārakā was adorned with tanks of pure water, troughs and sheds for drinking water, splendid squares and parks, orchards and gardens.³ In this connection a glance at the description of Indraprastha given in the Mahābhārata which will be found in the appendix will shew that the renowned capital of the Pāṇḍavas was conceived and planned as a garden-city. Indeed almost all ancient Indian cities of note were more or less garden-cities. We will hardly be justified in attributing the descriptions of cities reproduced above and also in the appendix to the winged imagination of Indian poets noted for their fondness of imaginative hyperboles. Even such books on technical subjects as the Yuktikalpataru and the Mayamata lay great stress on this aspect of Indian cities. According to the former, a town should be, "trimmed with sheds for drinking water, shrines and halls, tanks, gardens and the like" (prapā-maṇḍapa-kāsāra-kānanādyopaśobhita)¹; while the latter lays down: "There should be a fair distribution of reservoirs, tanks and wells." Only the necessity of defence and fortification lending a fortress-character to the cities of olden times hindered their full development into garden-cities as grand and magnificent as those of the modern age.