Town Planning in Ancient India c16.8

c16.8

The very reasons which led to the elaborate fortifications of the city and its citadel and gave rise to the foregoing political theory, were responsible for the origin of communalism in ancient India. I have already observed that blocks of houses under different ownerships were erected round an open space in the middle so that their back-walls formed a continued enclosure. In the common ownership of the central open space lies the seed of communalism. The communalist sentiments engendered by combination of mutual vigil and protection were crystallized by the patriarchal rule. We find therefore in the village communities of ancient India common pasture and common fields or tenure. Communalism remarkably expressed itself in the planning of the ancient city or village in the shape of a public square or common tank in the middle of the village, or in the village rest-house, in the council tree planted at the crossing of two main roads of the village with a pedestal raised round it or in the temple of its tutelary deity with its spacious maṇḍapa.¹ At all these trysting places the village elders congregated after sunset to discuss village politics; and at all hours of the day rural folks repaired to these places and enjoyed friendly chats. "The essential condition for the development of strong civic spirit lies in the maintenance of the communal life and consciousness, and this condition is fulfilled nowhere else in the world than in the oriental countries. This is to a certain extent the result of climate. Life, in the clear air and under the cloudless skies of India, is necessarily passed much in the open air. That the street is a kind of club, the very architecture, with its verandahs and stone-couches, bears mute witness to. The family-homes stand ranged behind the great open air salon, like a row of convent cells, for the stricter members of the choir. Sometimes there are added evidences of a larger social grouping, visible to the eye. Bhuvaneśwar has its great tree in the midst of the parting of three roads, and at any hour one may see there knots of talkers of one sort or another, seated at ease beneath it. Conjeeveram is like a city out of the old Greek or Assyrian world, so wide is the road-way that leads to the temple entrance, and so splendid is the arch that spans it just before, eloquent both of communal worship and rejoicing. Nor are women in India altogether without their civic centres and gathering places, though these are necessarily concerned chiefly with the bathing ghat, the temple and the well.”¹