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Town Planning in Ancient India c7: Chapter III: Survey of the City

Town Planning in Ancient India c7

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Chapter III: Survey of the City

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It is the function of the designer to find artistic expression for the requirements and tendencies of the town. His first duty then will be to keep in view the purposes for which the town is going to be laid out, then to study the political and economic conditions of the country, their relation to and effect upon city-construction, and to study the people and their requirements. The Indo-Aryan town-planner had first to determine the site with a special view to the extent to which its natural situation could best be turned into fortifications, and to allocate and distribute the towns of a kingdom on religious, political, commercial, as well as geographical considerations which go far to limit their area. It has been fully discussed elsewhere¹ how political conditions prevailing in ancient India rendered fortifications of the Indo-Aryan towns absolutely indispensable; how deserts, jungles, hills, rivers, and such like natural circumstances were utilised to defend them; and how, generally speaking, tradition fixed the curvilinear bank of a river or the confluence of two rivers as the most auspicious site for an Aryan town.

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¹ Vide Chapter XI.

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The capital of a kingdom was as far as possible centrally situated.¹ Kauṭilya, consistently with his Machiavellian, autocratic, and imperialistic views, inculcates the necessity of a ‘sthānīya’ (a fortress of the same name) in the centre of eight hundred villages, a ‘droṇamukha’ in the centre of four hundred villages, a ‘kharvaṭika’ in the centre of two hundred villages, and a ‘samgrahaṇa’ in the midst of a group of ten villages. The sites of villages or towns were carefully chosen according to principles, ritualistic and sanitary, preserved in the traditions of the Indo-Aryan master-builders as well as laid down in their treatises.² The bank of a river or a sea-shore, the site of a lake or big tank were the most favoured and generally accepted places, so that ample bathing facilities were easily accessible. With the Hindus ablution itself is a religious rite and is an indispensable preliminary to any religious function or observance and sacrificial rites. The Devas, literally ‘shining ones’, who were the guardian deities of the Aryan people loved the places that by nature or artifice were provided with limpid water and pleasant gardens. We can cite the ancient town of Kajuraha as an instance of a town set up round a big tank. The ruins of the town can still be seen eighty-five miles to the south of the station Harapalpore on the combined lines of the G.I.P. and E.I.R. running from Jhansi to Manickpore. With the local people it still passes for a holy place of pilgrimage and they call it a ‘puri’ or holy city. In the heart of the ruined town lies the great tank, paved with stones along its two embankments, and by the side of the tank stands the royal palace with its back against a series of temples. The site of Udaypur, eventually the capital of the Rānās of Mewar, was first selected by the vanquished Rānā Uday Sing for his place of retreat and hiding because of its seclusion. But the site had this outstanding merit that it lay on the bank of that magnificent lake, Udaysāgar, which the Rānā had previously constructed after his name. It is superfluous to remark here that commercial emporiums and holy cities that owed their origins to accidents of physiography or geology, or to religious traditions, or to the sanctuary of some renowned hermit, could not be laid out on a premeditated plan with reference to the extent and symmetry of the kingdom. Their natural growth precluded any idea of deliberate planning from the very beginning. Nevertheless the town-planning traditions and instincts of the people endowed them, at various stages of their development, with certain features which stamped them with unmistakable Indo-Aryan character. When, at any intermediate stage of its growth, a town was chosen as the headquarters of a king's representative, then it is very likely that it subsequently received a conscious planning.

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¹ Matsya Purāṇam, Ch. 217, sloka I. राजा......मध्यमं देशमावसेत् ।

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² Vide the preceding chapter.

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Sukrāchāryya recommended a locality like the following for a capital: "The capital should be set up in a place which abounds in various trees, plants and shrubs, and is rich in cattle, birds and other animals, endowed with good sources of water and supplies of grain, adorned with pleasant forests and vegetation, that is bestirred by the movements of boats up to the seas, and is not very remote from the hills, and that is an even grounded pictureque plain."¹ It has been a very common practice to fling out the sneering remark that ancient Indians, dominated by a Brahminical hierarchy preaching anti-social tenets of philosophy and religion, did not pay any heed to the social and mundane needs of men. The foregoing excerpt conclusively refutes a charge based on ignorance. It furnishes us with a magnificent account of the ideals of material existence that should be present in the mind of a ruler of state and gives us an insight into the secular and social life that the leaders of ancient Indian society could idealise as well as realise in practice. It is significant that Śukrāchāryya lays stress upon the presence of trees and creepers. It is only recently that his occidental compeers have come to recognise the climatic, sanitary, and economic importance of forests and the evils of deforestation. The land should be fertile. The place must be rich in game and replete with animal resources. The principal avocation of Indians being agriculture, the insistence upon water and grains indicates that there should be a splendid network of rivers and water-ways to facilitate irrigation of the country outside the town. The capital should not be too remote from the sea; at least it must be situated on or near a navigable river affording easy communication with the sea. The word ‘ākul’ points to the busy commercial life of the city, arrivals and departures of active vessels—here boats (nau)—plying in the river. Proximity to hills ensures ample supplies of minerals, fuel, and timber. According to Śukrāchāryya a capital should lie at the foot or by the side of a mountain, but the latter must not be included within the capital. These mountains would be overtopped with fastnesses to defend the capital below. Thus Jeypore is situated on a plain at the foot of a mountain ridge on the summit of which is situated the fort of the city. But there were exceptions to this rule. The utility of trees was also recognised by the author of the Mānasāra:—"The best sort of ground should abound with milky trees, full of fruits and flowers, e.g., 'khadira' (mimosa), 'kadamba' (naseclea), 'nimba' (margosa), 'champaka' (michelia), 'punnāga' (mesua), 'āmalaka' (emblica), pāṭala (bignonia), 'saptaparṇa' (echites of Linn), and some other varieties belonging to this species of trees."¹ Mayamuni suggests that it should be a plain planted with 'bilva', 'nimba', 'nirguṇḍi', 'piṇḍita' 'saptaparṇa', 'sahakāra' (mangoe). It is to be noted that many of the above kinds of trees have become holy in the eyes of the Indians by virtue of their medicinal properties, and breezes from their leaves are purifying and anti-maladial. It is a recent discovery that the breezes from the nimba tree are prophylactic of malaria. The author of the Matsya Purāṇa says that the locality should be such as does not depend on casual showers for cultivation and fertilisation; that is, it must be intersected with streams and canals, natural or artificial; it must be picturesque, free from reptiles, tigers, and free-booters.¹

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¹ Sukranītisāra, Chapter I. नानाद्रुमलताकीर्णं पशुपाक्षिसमावृतम् । सुजलादकधान्यं च तृणकाष्ठसुखे सदा ॥ २१३ ॥ आसिन्धुनौगमाकुले नातिदूरमहीधरे । सुरम्यसमभूदेशे राजधानीं प्रकल्पयेत् ॥ २१४ ॥ Cf. Yājñavalkya, I. 321 :— रम्यं पश्यमानाय्यं जाङ्गल देशमावसेत् ।

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¹ Vide Chapter 3.

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¹ Ch. 217, ll. 5,9.

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The Mānasāra directs the examination of the site as its fitness from its colour, smell, taste, shape, direction, sound, and touch. The ground should be level and smooth with a declivity towards the east, producing a hard sound, with a stream running from left to right, of an agreeable odour, containing a great quantity of soil, producing water when dug to the depth of a man with his arm raised above his head, and situated in a climate of moderate temperature. The ground possessed of qualities directly opposed to those mentioned above is the worst, and that which has a mixed nature is middling.”²

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² Chapter 3. This test at once proves the fertility as well as the solidity of the ground.

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Mayamuni’s test does not materially differ from that of the Mānasāra. According to the former, the ground should rise slowly towards the south and the west; i.e., it must slant down towards the north and the east (i.e., ‘aindrottara-plabe’, as the author of the Devī Purāṇa puts it). In

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भदैवमाढ्यं रम्यं सुरक्तजनमन्वितम् ॥ ५ ॥
सरीसृपविहीनञ्च व्याघ्रस्करवर्जितम् ॥ ६ ॥

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addition to the attributes required by the latter, Mayamuni requires that the soil should be fertile enough for all varieties of seeds to sprout up in it, of uniform colour or of all colours, white, red, yellow and black, dense, cooling, pleasant to the touch, having all the varieties of taste like pungent, astringent, etc., mixed with sand to a small proportion.

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The ground to be avoided, according to the Mānasāra, is that "which has the form of a circle, a semi-circle, or containing 3, 5, or 7 angles, resembling a trident or a window; which is shaped like the hinder part of a fish, or the back of an elephant or a turtle, or the face of a cow, and the like; situated opposite to any of the intermediate quarters, north-west and the like (bidiksthā); abounding with human skulls, stones, worms, ant-hills, bones, slimy earth, decayed woods, coals, dilapidated wells, subterranean pits, fragments of tiles, lime stones, husks of corn; exposed to the wafted effluvia of curd, oil, honey, dead bodies, fishes, etc.; such a space should be avoided on every account." To avoid the odium of reiteration, I mention those disqualifications which Mayamuni lays down, distinct from the Mānasāra :—"The ground that has mighty trees at its four corners, is sterile, has a large number of oceans in it or has none at all, is to be avoided".

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The foregoing disqualifications of ground, leaving aside all mystic and superstitious interpretations, bespeak impurity, insanitation, sterility, insolidity, and hollowness, and irregularity of sites and plots which would effect the shape of buildings and planting of rectilinear streets and the stability of structures erected on them.¹

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Of the merits and demerits of proclivities in different directions Bhoja is of opinion that the ground should be elevated in the middle² and slanting towards the east and north-east. A southern declivity is responsible for all insanitariness and brings diseases; a declivity towards the north is conducive to wealth, while a westward slope destroys peace and prosperity; a depression of the ground in the middle conveys poverty, while a depression on the borders brings in happiness.³ All the Śilpa Śāstras are unanimous in extoll-

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¹ Mayamuni summarises the geological and physiographical qualifications of the ground in these words :—

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श्वेताक्षकृीतकषाड्यगजनिनदा षड्रसा चैकवर्णा
गोधान्याम्भोजगन्धीपलतुषरहितावाक्प्रतौच्चुन्नता या ।
पूर्वोदग्द्वारिसारा वरसुरभिसमा शूलहीनास्थिवर्जा
सा भूमि: सर्वयोग्या कषदररहिता सम्पातान्ये सुधीन्द्रै: ॥
मयमते ३य अध्याय: ।

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Translation is redundant.

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² Elevation in the middle seems to be discouraged by Mānasāra. The ground of objection is rather unintelligible and unwarranted.

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³ Yuktikalpataru, verses 156-7. Cf. Nagara-rachanā-śāstra :—

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ईशानपूर्व्यप्रवणो मध्यस्थानमुन्नतः ॥
उत्तम: कौक्षिती देशो गृहय नगराय च ।

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ing an easterly declivity of a ground, because one obtains the full benefit of the morning sun. It is for this reason that the location of towns to the west of mountains is prohibited. For in that case the sun-rays will be obstructed by the mountains at sunrise.¹ But a northerly declivity cannot be so easily accounted for. India is situated to the north of the equator, and an inclination of the site towards the north, while lessening the incidence of the sunlight, exposes any building to the chill winds of winter. One should therefore expect that the site should be inclined towards the south. But that was not to be, say the Śilpa Śāstras. Is it to neutralise the southerly declivity of the whole of India with oceans to the south and the great Himalayas to the north? It may be remembered in this connection that to the Indians, situate as they are to the north of the equator, the north is the quarter of light, the region of the devas, the ‘shining ones’. One of the reasons can be sought in the fact that the south is the quarter over which Yama, the god of death, presides. It may be that, in a hot country like India, too much exposure to the sun’s rays, such as a southerly declivity would bring about, cannot be desirable, for it would make the buildings too hot and the soil too dry. The prevailing winds and rains in India are from the south and the west. Therefore if the ground slopes towards those directions, the houses will be dangerously exposed to every storm and shower.¹ It also may be that too much exposure to the northerly winds of the summer—which is the season of epidemics in India—would not be conducive to salubrity of the city. This apprehension of excessive exposure or the other hypotheses are so fantastic or far-fetched that they can hardly stand the test of reason. The ground of a town cannot be so slanting as to be distinctly perceptible to the eye. Sharp declivity is more or less the basis of the foregoing hypothetical explanations. Its absence in practice cuts the ground under them. Whatever the cause may be, it is patent that a declivity facilitates drainage and this has been clearly set forth in the word ‘purvodak-

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¹ प्राच्यो निषिद्धो हि गिरिः तच्छायाप्युदये रवेः । Śilparatna, ch. III, sl. 33.

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¹ Mr. K. V. Vaze in the July number of the *Vedic Magazine* (1922) writes :—" The ground on which a building is to be erected should not slope much nor should it slope towards the prevailing wind and rain. In India the prevailing wind and rain are from the south or west and hence the site should not slope towards the south or west. If the ground falls towards the wind and rain, it is likely to be washed off by every shower and it would not afford protection from rain and wind. The site should moreover be such as to allow of the penetration of the sun's rays into it." For this a slope towards the south would have been more favourable.

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It should be noted however that, for obvious reasons, houses opening out towards the south are preferred, next to those facing the east, while houses facing north are very much discouraged.

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vārisārā’. Hence, in case of southern declivity, all the filths of the town will be drained and washed into the southern ditch. In winter decomposition of any thing proceeds too slowly to affect sanitation, but heat of the summer favours decomposition. Consequently the foul vapour which the decomposed filths of the southern ditch will emit in summer will be blown into the town by the northerly winds, thus spreading plague and pestilence in the city. With a northern declivity, it will be wafted away from it. And here is the most cogent reason. Bhoja urges this very reason, when he warns against insanitariness.

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In ancient India there were villages or wards in a town which were exclusively inhabited by people of the same caste. The beneficent peculiarities of the ground are said to have been different for the different castes. The Mānasāra divides the soil into four species and points out in order of superiority what is considered auspicious for residence of each of the four classes with reference to the seven qualities already alluded to, i.e., colour, smell, taste, form, direction, sound, and touch. Sutradhara Maṇḍana, in his Rājavallabha, differentiates and enumerates the qualities as follows:—“The plot fit for the Brāhmaṇs is white, emanating fragrance like ghee and agreeable to the taste; that suited to the warrior class is red, smelling like blood, astringent in taste; the ground answering to the Vaiśyas is yellow, emitting a smell like sesamum oil and sour to the taste; while the ground which is black, gives out a fish-like odour, and is pungent becomes the Śūdras."¹ The details of Mayamuni on this point are fuller :—" A white square plot for the twice-born (here the Brāhmaṇs) is above all blame; moreover when rich with fig trees, and sloping towards the north it is most suitable and, if sweet and astringent, is said to be conducive to happiness. A plot whose length exceeds the breadth by ⅛th part, and which is red, bitter to the taste, levelled with eastward declivity, extensive and containing 'pipul' trees, is the one most suited to the warrior class and to its all-round wealth. The ground which is auspicious for the Vaiśyas or commercial class is long ⅙th as much again as it is broad, yellow, sour in taste, full of 'plaksha' trees and slanting towards the east. The tract of land which is black, pungent, possessing banian trees, sloping towards the west with a length greater than its breadth by one quarter, is recommended as good for the Śūdras and it increases their wealth and paddy."²

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¹ Rājavallaba, Ch. I.

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² Mr. K. V. Vaze says (Vedic Magazine, July, 1922) :—" In Śilpa (engineering) the terms Brāhmaṇa etc., do not mean the castes but only the first class or best etc.,—and everything viz. earth, stone, animals,

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It should be noted that the colours of the ground answer to the colours of the respective castes, the Sanskrit term for the caste being ‘varṇa’, literally colour. It is said that people were originally classified into castes according to their complexions. The complexion of the Brāhmaṇs was white, emblematic of purity and holiness; that of the Kshatriyas was red, colour of the blood, symbolic of battle and martial spirit; that of the Vaiśyas was yellow, the colour of gold, emblematic of commerce; that of the Śūdras was black, the colour of the non-Aryan low class people, signifying ignorance and dirty habits. The trees have also been allotted in order of their sanctity. The tastes of the respective grounds were also appropriate and significant. The Matsya Purāṇa suggests a mystic method of determining the best building sites for the four castes. “Let a pit be sunk one cubit deep and let it be carefully besmeared over. Let a ghee-lamp of unbaked earth be placed in it, with four wicks pointing to the four cardinal directions.

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trees &c., are called Brāhmaṇa &c., where it is meant to say that they are best or first class etc.” A little thought upon the extract given above from the Mayamata will prove that Mr. Vaze’s interpretation is not universally applicable. Besides, different storeys for different castes as laid down subsequently in the same book cannot add to or detract from the qualification of an edifice. But it is undeniable that there is great force in his contention inasmuch as it is unthinkable that the same plot or tract can be endowed, in specified quarters, with the different four-fold characteristics as contemplated in the allocation of sites to the four castes.

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If the eastern wick burns brightest, then the place is suitable for the Brāhmaṇs; if the southern wick glows most, the Kshatriyas are the most suited for the place and so on. If the brilliance of the four wicks is equal, then the place is suitable for all the castes.”¹

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¹ Ch. 227.

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There were many ways to ascertain the solidity of the ground. The following rule is laid down in the first section of the Kāśyapa, in the 4th chapter of the Mayamata, in the 227th chapter of the Matsya Purāṇa, and in the Rājavallabha, which shows it was a universal rule: “Dig out a pit one cubit deep in the ground and again return the earth into it. If the earth more than fills up the pit, then the ground is good; if it is just sufficient then it is middling or indifferent; while if it falls short, the ground is bad. The good and indifferent varieties are acceptable, but the bad should on no account be accepted.” Another way to determine the solidity as well as the fertility of the soil is as follows:—“Sink a pit one cubit deep, fill it up with water, walk away a hundred paces from it, and then come back and see. If the water stands slightly below the brim, then it is best; if the pit is empty by one quarter, then it is middling; if the pit is found only half-full, then it is worst.”² Mayamuni’s examination of the rule is slightly different. He would fill up the pit with water in the evening and examine it early next morning. If there is a remnant of water in the pit, then the ground should be welcome for all purposes. If the pit is found moist and muddy, then the ground will spell ruin for human habitation, and the aridity of the pit signifies loss of grains and wealth. The *raison d'être* of the above rules can be easily inferred. These tests indicate beyond doubt that the soil of the proposed site was examined to ascertain whether it was fit for cultivation and whether good drinking water was procurable sufficiently near the surface.

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² Rājavallabha.

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Some authors of the Śilpa Śāstras have gone so far as to forbid the lower class from occupying the ground suited to the higher and vice versa, on pain of incurring the severest vengeance of heavens. But the principles which worked up these punctilious and superstitious distinctions were more recommendatory than mandatory. In practice, it signified little whether the ground designed for the residence of a Brāhmaṇ was square or oblong, white or red, sweet or sour, provided that the situation was convenient, the soil was fertile, and the ground was firm enough not to sink down under the weight of a superstructure. Again it is not easy to find in a single piece of land all the qualifications prescribed in the foregoing paragraphs. Indeed no place on earth is endowed with the ideal contributions of geology and physiography, and no capital or city in the world has ever been traced to possess all the gifts of hills, rivers, seas, and forests in the manner described above and also to command the vegetable and mineral resources of the country. It was enough if there was nothing to be said against the sanitation and the economic self-sufficiency of the city.

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The selection of the ground over, the Sthapati (the civic architect) now turns his attention to its purification and consecration. The rites to this end prescribed both by the Mānasāra and the Mayamata are almost identical and they are these:—"In an auspicious moment the Sthapati after pious ablutions, clad in fresh garments, and adorned with garlands of flowers, in the presence of the assembled people, makes an offering of fried paddy and white flowers to the deities¹ and with invocations for the welfare and prosperity of the builder (or of the architectural enterprise he is going to undertake), he sprinkles consecrated waters in all quarters, and drives away the evil spirits that may haunt the place. Then he, guiding the oxen, draws furrows across the ground towards the east or the west, the grass and the weeds having been plucked out in the first instance. Usually he turns the first furrow and thereafter the Śūdras hired for the purpose complete the ploughing of the ground.” A new plough was specially made for the occasion. The fourth chapter of the Mānasāra deals with the construction of a plough and with ploughing. The newly made plough was yoked to a pair of oxen, strong and without blemish, with gold and silver rings on their horns and hoofs. When the ploughing was finished, the oxen and the plough were presented to him as his perquisites, the people reverencing him as their guru. Then all kinds of seeds (generally sesasum seeds, pulse and kidney beans, i.e., sacrificial grains) mixed with cow dung are sown with incantations pronounced over them. When the crops have matured and flowers are in bloom, the cows, generally the cattle of the community, together with oxen and calves, are put to graze on them and they are allowed to remain there for one or two nights: for the ground is purified by the grazing of the cattle, consecrated by their exhalations, purged of impurity by the hilarious bellowing of the oxen, cleansed and sanctified by froth flowing from the mouths of the calves, laved by bovine urine, besmeared with their ordure and chequered with slipped cud and their foot-marks. The foregoing procedures of selecting and sanctifying the ground were followed in all cases of a village, a ward, a fortress, and the like.

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¹ These are the presiding deities of the mystic diagram known as Paramaśāyika Vāstumaṇḍala. *Vide* Chapter VI.

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The Sthapati had then to go through another important function. He had to ascertain the cardinal points of the heaven by means of a gnomon. This is a procedure treated at length by writers on Hindu architecture and hence its utility and importance cannot be ignored. It was absolutely necessary that all the quarters should be distinctly and precisely ascertained and marked on the spot on which towns and their wards and buildings were to be erected, for the purpose of giving them an auspicious aspect and of preventing their being opposite to any of the intermediate points which were pronounced inauspicious. But it was not an invariable rule that the towns, at least, and, in some cases, their muhallas, should be given such an orientation, as the nature of the terrain often rendered it impossible.

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The next duty of the master-builder was to fix the area of the city or village, suitable to its requirements. The books of Indo-Aryan town-planning discourse at length upon what may be the possible areas of towns and villages. Of the villages I have treated in a separate chapter and here I consider only the areas of the towns as laid down in them. The Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa suggests that the natural fort should be eight yojanas (1 yojana = 8 × 1,000 × 17½ cubits) long and four yojanas broad.¹ According to Bhoja, the royal capital should be so many ‘rājakṣetra’ square (1 rājakṣetra = 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 cubits, here one cubit = length of the fore-arm of the particular king) as denoted by the number of the particular moment (lagna) in which the king for whom the capital was going to be built was born. Thus if a king is born at a quarter to the fourth daṇḍa when the Meṣa constellation (Aries) is ascendant, the area of his capital should be four rājakṣetras square. The astrological significance of this peculiar standard of measuring the area is explained to be that a king soon dies who lives in a town laid out in measurement with the number denoting the period of lagna pertaining to another king’s birth or in a city constructed by a different king.² The Agni Purāṇa, on the other hand, has that the town should extend over eight or four miles square.³ Mayamuni’s detailed statements of the city area are different in different places of his book. The length of one side of a town, in his opinion, may range from 1,000 daṇḍas (1 daṇḍa = 6 ft.) and the circumference of a town may measure four ways, varying from 2,000 to 8,000 daṇḍas, the common difference being 2,000 daṇḍas. In a different calculation he gives 768, 704, and 640 daṇḍas as the three lateral measurements respectively of good, mediocre and bad forts,¹ while the sides of the same three varieties of a town are 832, 896, 962 daṇḍas long. It is to be noted here that in both cases the common difference is 64 and the difference between the lengths of corresponding kinds of a fort and a town is also the same. Again a fort or a town may be of nine different measurements, the common difference being 16. The length may be 2, 1¾, 1½, 1¼, 1⅛, 1⅙, or 1 times the breadth measured as above, or it may be as much in extent as may be desirable. Yet in another chapter he would divide towns into 78 kinds according to the lengths of a side ranging from 300 to 8,000 daṇḍas by a common addition of 100 daṇḍas. Furthermore he has innumerable townships measuring from 100 to 3,000 daṇḍas by a common addition of 10 (or 100 according to a different reading) daṇḍas. The circumference of a splendid town, he further goes on, varies 25 times from 1,600 to 4,000 daṇḍas by a common addition of 500 daṇḍas. The ratio of the other sides to these is the same as laid down above.¹ Naturally these arbitrary measurements were not strictly adhered to in practice, but the measurements were varied enough to afford the master-builder ample scope for adjusting them to necessities of space and population. Indeed the conflict of measurements given for some known towns with those laid down above goes to confirm the foregoing view. Thus we find in the Rāmāyaṇa that the town of Ayodhyā was twelve yojanas in length and three yojanas in breadth and from the Harivaṃśa we come to learn that the extended and reconstructed city of Dvārakā was 12 by 8 yojanas in area.

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¹ Ch. 8, l. 216.

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² परलयदशाममिते परकृतेऽथवा । नगरे यौवसद्राजा सोऽचिरात्त्युंमप्रयात् ।। युक्तिकल्पतरुः, श्लोकः १७३ ।

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³ Ch. 106, verse 1.

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¹ These good, mediocre, and bad kinds of fort may not mean more than that they are first, second, and third class.

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¹ Mayamatam, Chs. 9-10.

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Having marked off the peripheries as above, the master-builder had to visualise the pre-existing arteries of communication, natural and artificial, of the site with other towns of the kingdom, or with other important centres of commerce or agriculture, or with hills from which mineral resources were drawn, or with any other important place such as forts or forests with which heavy and frequent intercourse was indispensable. He had then to erect the walls and excavate the ditches and there-after to adjust the number of the city gates and their location, in conformity with this plan. The principal and essential gates were those which were situate at the four sides. His next function was to divide the whole area within the enclosure into the mystic diagram Paramaśāyikā¹ and to determine the sites for the royal palace, council house, shrines of different deities belonging to people of different persuasions with reference to their wards; for the wells, reservoirs, markets, cremation ground, streets and lanes, gardens and orchards, blocks of houses and wards for the different communities and professions. The demarcation of all these was closely connected with the above-mentioned figures.² With the division of the muhallas or residential sites the duty and control of the master-builder did not end. Indo-Aryan town-planning had fixed beyond controversy the shape, area, method of planning, and distribution of various buildings of a citizen according to his caste, rank in society, position in the body-politic, and profession. The intervening space between two houses and width of streets so as to secure proper lighting and ventilation were also laid down in books of civic art. Such elaborate schemes of building operations and distribution of sites were impossible, if there was private ownership of land in the town. Śukrāchāryya says that such private ownership was not and should not be allowed in towns. Plots of ground were allotted to persons during their life-time for laying out gardens and erecting houses thereon.¹ Like the control of the modern Municipalities and Improvement Trusts, the control of the master-builder was therefore all-embracing and had to be frequently exercised.

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¹ Vide infra.

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² For their allocation see Chs. 5-11 of the Mayamata.

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¹ Śukranītisāra, Ch. II, ll 421—24. न दद्याद् द्व्यङ्गुलमति भूमेः स्वलनिवर्त्तनम् । इत्यथं कल्पयेदापि यावद्ग्राहस्तु कौर्वति ॥ २११ गुणी तावद् देवतार्थं विश्रजेच्च सदैवहि । आरामाथं गृहार्थं वा दद्यात् दृश कुटुम्बिनम् ॥ २१२

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The foregoing statements of facts may be relied upon in making the following generalisations. The sociological side of the survey carried on by the Indo-Aryan master-builder consisted in preparing maps to indicate such matters as the degree of density of population in the different parts of the town, allocation of sites for different castes and professions, distribution of residential, business, and manufacturing areas with necessary subdivisions, distribution of parks, public and other open spaces and the extent of each. If he had to improve, reconstruct, or extend an old existing town as in the case of Dvārakā, he had to take a historical survey of the shrines, buildings, or reservoirs of historical importance and traditional sanctity. And he had to project how he could best carry out his duties without violently dislocating the existing order. Such dislocation means unnecessary and additional financial burden or causes injustice and inconvenience to the original settlers. The history of the foundation of Madurā corroborates this.¹

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¹ *Vide* Venkatarama Ayyar, Madurā.

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By way of geological survey, he had to ascertain the fertility and at the same time the solidity of the ground and the mineral resources that could be utilised and the building materials available. If the town was to be laid out on the bank of a river or on a sea-shore, he had to consider whether there was any probability in future of diluvion or erosion of the city and how it could be best prevented. Moreover, he had to carefully survey the general traffic, its distribution, and the relative intensity of its flow from different districts, the traffic facilities in the shape of water-ways, roads, and bridges, both proposed and desirable. He had to take into account all the existing drainage systems and water supplies and to effect necessary additions and alterations in them. Besides these, he had to take cognizance of the political situation of the country at the time and its reaction upon his own city. He had to construct his fortifications in pursuance of this military survey and to strengthen specially the strategic points of offence and defence. Maps showing the boundaries of different possessions and habitations had to be prepared. Local requirements, traditional prejudices or rules affecting the desirable size or shape of building plots for various purposes and thus influencing the distribution of the streets had to be noted on the chart. Conditions as to building materials and traditional and recorded methods of building observed in the locality, the species of trees and shrubs prevalent or suitable for planting, and any other characteristics which go to make up the individuality, economic, historic, and artistic, of the town had to be carefully noted. There are no direct materials, present and discovered, to show that the Indo-Aryan master-builders were conscious of all these aspects of the science of town-planning but that they had some knowledge, however rudimentary and perfunctory, of the essentials, I have given indirect proof in this chapter and incidentally in others.

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