[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) › c16.11.3 # Town Planning in Ancient India c16.11.3 Town Planning in Ancient India c16.11.3 - **Language:** English ### [c16.11.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.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. - [Previous: c16.11.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c16.11.2) - [Next: c16.11.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c16.11.4) - [Up: c16.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c16.11) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c16.11.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c16.11.3) · Pramāṇa