Town Planning in Ancient India c6.5

c6.5

an emporium (pattanam); a local fastness (sthānīyam); a camp (kaṭakam); a crossing of great highways (paṭṭam); a commercial centre (nigama); a place on a river side (puṭabhedanam). A close study of the above synonyms will reveal the history and explain the origin and characteristics of the Indo-Aryan cities. "The cities stand always, as Kropotkin points out, at the crossings of the great highways.....The ideal city is the meeting place of shepherd and peasant, of merchant and artificer, of priest and pilgrim, of court and camp. It is the centre towards which converge streams that rise in all the quarters of the globe. It is a market-place and exchange, a focus of wealth and industry, a hall of international council, and the quadrangle of world-university."¹ The above list contains almost all the varieties of cities which had conscious origin as well as those which evolved naturally.