Town Planning in Ancient India c7.49

c7.49

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.