[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Architecture and art](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art) › [Town Planning in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925) › c5.31 # Town Planning in Ancient India c5.31 Town Planning in Ancient India c5.31 - **Language:** English ### [c5.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c5.31) In consonance with the great attention devoted to the science and its diffusion among the people, the ancient Hindus developed a high tone of civic consciousness. Every poet seems to take pride in his beloved city and in glorifying it. The Tamil poets' enthusiasm over the elaborate descriptions of their cities, historical and architectural, proves that they were conscious of their magnificence.¹ The spirit which animated the authors of the Purāṇas to hyperbolise the dimensions, overcolour the grandeur and brilliancy, to outdecorate the ornate and florid decorations, to eulogise the lions of their cities and the actions of their heroes, after due allowance is made for the overdrawing aptitudes peculiar to old æons when imagination was not blurred by a dissecting science, can at once be recognised as the spirit of civic consciousness. "Of our two great Epics it may be said that while the pervading interests of the Mahābhārata are heroic and national, those of the Rāmāyaṇa are mainly personal and civic. It is more than likely, indeed, that Vālmīki’s poem sprang out of a deliberate wish to glorify the beloved city of Ayodhyā by painting the mythic history of its earliest sovereigns. The city, and every thing in it, fill the poet with delight. He spends himself in descriptions of its beauty on great festivals. He loses himself in the thought of its palaces, its arches, and its towers. But it is when he comes to paint Laṅkā, that we reap the finest fruit of that civic sense which Ayodhyā has developed in him. There is nothing in all Indian literature, of greater significance for the modern Indian mind than the scene in which Hanumān contends in the darkness with the woman who gaurds the gates saying in muffled tones, ‘I am the city of Laṅkā.’”¹ Such a civic sense is quite probable because the cities in ancient times were more than centres of trade and corporate life; they were the ultimate resorts of the people against hostile invasion. Settlements were scarcely possible in the open country remote from the walls of the towns or town-like villages. - [Previous: c5.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c5.30) - [Next: c5.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c5.32) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c5) ## Linked texts (4) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.ramayana.valmiki) — Vālmīki, Sanskrit - [Ayodhyā (Sāketa)](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.site.ayodhya) - [Lanka](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.site.lanka) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c5.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c5.31) · Pramāṇa