Town Planning in Ancient India c5.25

c5.25

“It would probably be a mistake to regard these forts as permanently occupied fortified places like the fortresses of the mediæval barony. They were probably mere places of refuge against attack, ramparts of hardened earth with palisades and a ditch (cf. dehi). Pischel and Geldner, however, think that they were towns with wooden walls and ditches like the Indian town of Pāṭaliputra known to Megasthenes and the Pāli texts (Mahāparinibbānasutta, p. 12). This is reasonable but hardly susceptible of proof, and it is not without significance that the word ‘nagar’ is of later occurrence. On the whole it is hardly likely that in early Vedic times city life was much developed. In the Epic, according to Hopkins, there are found the ‘nagara’ (city); ‘grāma’ (village); and ‘ghosha’ (ranch). Vedic literature hardly seems to go beyond the village; no doubt, with modifications in its later period.