Town Planning in Ancient India c16.4

c16.4

The most conspicuous characteristic of ancient Indian towns—in fact, of all ancient towns, Greek, Roman or Indian—that cannot fail to arrest the indifferent eyes of the most desultory tourist, is their fortification,—the girdle of walls and moats. It is not for nothing that these constitute an integral part of the discourses on town-planning in the Silpa Sāstras where their construction is treated in elaborate details. It is because they were indispensable bulwarks of defence, that their structure was consummated to a skilful science. In India, as in Europe, there was no vast empire under one suzerain extending all over the country, in which case Nature would have furnished the most formidable breastworks in the shape of encompassing seas and mountains. But like the old Greek city-states, India was a congeries of many small principalities which were often engaged in guerilla warfare with one another to gain overlordship. The life of citizens was necessarily insecure due to these internecine conflicts and this insecurity was further accentuated by the barbarian aborigines, called the Rākshasas who were driven by Aryan might into the jungles and who with their anthropophagous propensities were ever ready to fly at the throat of the intruders upon their native home and hitherto undisputed realm. Besides, the whole country was interspersed with thick jungles alive with wild animals who, every now and then, carried havoc into human habitations. These causes combined to impress upon the ancient civic architect the indispensibility of effective defence against the inroads of deadly foes, rational or irrational.