Town Planning in Ancient India c7.2

c7.2

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.