Town Planning in Ancient India c19.2

c19.2

The construction and distribution of city gates have been briefly discussed in proper places in some previous chapters but the separate treatment of the subject in orthodox treatises of Śilpa invests it with an importance that necessitates its special discussion in *extenso*. Construction of city gates does not obviously come under town-planning. It is with their allocation that I am therefore concerned here.¹ The main directions about the latter operation will bear repetition here in view of its full, complete treatment contemplated in this chapter. The arrangement of the gates has been made with reference to the division of the city into a Paramaśāyika pada, *i.e.* into eighty-one rectangular blocks, the fundamental operation upon which the whole science of Indian town-planning has been based.