Town Planning in Ancient India c16.11

Language: English

c16.11.1

Patriarchism also accounts to some extent for trade-guilds, as the castes or their sub-divisions really were, inasmuch as any profession used to be handed down from generation to generation, i.e. sons in almost all cases followed the trade and crafts of their parents. This guild system no less than the division of social functions and theory of decentralisation of government made the village community an autonomous unit and gave rise to that peculiar social organism of the Hindus known as the Varṇāśram-adharma. This Hindu sociology, dividing the whole Hindu community into four principal castes which ultimately disintegrated into many more sub-castes, stamped the Aryan town or village-planning with indelible marks of its own. For, we find, in the town or village, different building-plots or wards were assigned to different castes or subcastes and the Śilpa Śāstras are very much particular in their distribution. In this stratification of the society also, com-munalism asserted itself, for every building-block or ward of a town was planned exactly in accordance with the same principles as were followed in village-planning and consequently such communal centres as the council tree and the square were necessarily provided for in the wards or the building-plots.

c16.11.2

The evil consequence upon city-corporate life of segregating people into detached wards where they could be liable to develop different habits and customs was provided against by the large composite wards, villages in themselves, of the big cities; or in small towns of simple residential blocks, by establishment of temples in the centre with magnificent maṇḍapas, debating halls, and rest-houses within the temple compound, where all sorts of people could freely congregate together irrespective of their caste. As in strictly religious matters there was no distinction of caste, so the holy ground of the temple was open to all. Varṇāśrama-dharma was a strictly a social institution and it could not stretch beyond the pale of social concerns. Every person belonging to any caste has his inherent right to make offerings and devotions to the tutelary deity of the city or village whose holy precincts can by no means be polluted by his sons. The influence of human organisation cannot enter and interfere with the equality and fraternity of devotees reigning in the consecrated compound. It is in this sense that it is said that Holy Benares is without the world. Inasmuches every institution or performance drew its inspiration from a religious creed which was supreme in all matters, the true national spirit of the Hindus as embodied in their common religious susceptibility, permeated all strata of the society, strengthening the bonds of corporate life.

c16.11.3

It was in periods of degeneration that caste distinctions were carried also within the holy precincts of the temple. It was for this reason and also because non-Aryan gods, such as the Dravidian deities, were not recognised by the proselytising Aryans who, though they took the non-Aryans within the pale of their society, did not in some cases find niches for their deities in the Hindu Pantheon, that we meet with arrangement for temples to exclusive caste-deities in the villages or towns. The dirty habits of the low classes might have accentuated this untenable and ugly phase of Hindu society. It may not be at all improbable that actual conversion of many aboriginal tribes never took place. Their living and constant contact with a higher civilisation might have done its work of slowly and silently influencing them, until they, largely innocent of any pronounced consciousness of the integrity and individuality of their own race that marks the modern civilised races, became Hinduised in their ideas and habits to a certain extent. They formed of their own accord the lowest strata of the Hindu society. The victors have in all ages and climes claimed such voluntary converts to their own creed. Perhaps the victorious Aryans could not shed their superior airs and treated the vanquished non-Aryans much in the same way as alien rulers treat the natives of a subject nation professing a different creed and civilisation and belonging to a different race.

c16.11.4

In India too at present there are many persons saturated with western civilisation who have imitated European manners and customs. They are more European than Indian and they glory in that and are highly gratified if they constantly come in contact with the European community. If at any time Indian civilisation decays down in its land of birth, then they will first form the Panchama class of the Christian community. This is what has happened in the Deccan with respect to the "untouchable" Hindus.