Town Planning in Ancient India c6.28

c6.28

It is significant that the plan of temples, especially in Southern India, corresponds to that of an Indo-Aryan village or town in its salient features. Answering to the gate-towers of the village or the town are the ‘Gopuram’ or the gateways of the temple. The fine alleys that lead to the temple form the prototypes of the main crossways (rājamārgāḥ) of the village or the city; the spacious corridors and paths encompassing the temple constitute the counterparts of the streets round the royal castle; while the girdle of wall and the ‘pradakshiṇa’ path or the path of circumambulation is the ‘Maṅgalabīthī’ or the boulevard going round the city. The pilgrims or devotees congregate in the ‘maṇḍapa’ of the temple which answers to the council house of the city. Every temple is well-provided with reservoirs, wells, tanks, drains, rest rooms, study or debating halls, small supplementary temples at the corners of the compound, well provisioned with granaries, stalls, and even markets. Here and there stands erect a mango or a banian tree, even within the compound, but the trees of the city are mainly respresented by the imposing and magnificent stone colonnade. Even as the royal castle is erected on the bank of a large tank round which the city grows, so in front of the temple is a small bathing ghāt into the tank the water of which is held sacred.