Town Planning in Ancient India c3.4

c3.4

Though India’s Past had then, as it has now, a great fascination for me, yet it was not this spirit which impelled me to commence work in this line. It is an accident that drew me to it. Some years ago Prof. Patrick Geddes organised town-planning exhibitions in some important metropolises of India. The Calcutta exhibition aroused the imagination of a revered brother of mine who urged me to investigate what progress ancient India might have made in the field of civic science. The present writer who had till then come across only florid and fantastic descriptions of forts and capitals in the Epics and the Purāṇas, and scrappy treatment of the science in the latter works, did not feel himself encouraged to launch upon such a venture as these materials, until then the only within his knowledge, could, in his opinion, be hardly developed into even a decent monograph on the subject to be placed beside the bulky volumes that the West has of late contributed to its parallel there. The result, he thought, would hardly repay the arduous labour involved. The optimistic enthusiasm of my brother was not however to be damped by such diffident and discouraging considerations which, as he truly thought, ignorance usually engenders. He continued to goad and exhort me until I had perforce to direct my attention to it. I was really unprepared for the happy disillusionment which awaited me and followed soon after the commencement of the investigation. A vast splendid landscape of ancient India, quite unknown to me, opened up before my admiring eyes. The materials began to accumulate with unexpected rapidity and to-day they baffle my anxiety and capacity to bring them all together. I have met, in references, with many works, published and unpublished, which with all my efforts I have failed to get at. The materials to my hand are however enough for writing a good volume on the subject and, reserving the unsecured materials for its further improvement and future edition, I have thought it wise to put the results of my labour up to this day in black and white and to place them before the critical world. No one is more conscious of the defects and shortcomings of this book than its humble author. He hopes however, with the generous assistance of his sympathetic readers, to improve and develop the volume into its full dimensions in its future editions.