Town Planning in Ancient India c8.109

c8.109

In alignment with the bridges stood the gopuras, or the gateways of the town in the form of pyramidal towers of imposing aspect. “A turret, above the gate and starting from the top of the parapet, shall be constructed, its front resembling an aligator up to three-fourths of its height.”¹ Megasthenes writes that the wall of Pāṭaliputra was equipped with 570 towers and 64 gates. This shows that there were other towers besides those over-arching the gates of the city. It may be noted here that these gopuras were a characteristic feature of the Indo-Aryan architecture so much so that they formed an integral part of almost every palatial house. The 24th chapter of the Mayamata and the 33rd chapter of the Mānasāra deal in detail with the construction of these gopuras. The towers consisted of varying storeys, their number ranging from one to fourteen. Rāmrāz, in his “Essay on Indian Architecture”, furnishes us with diagrams of many such gopuras. Generally there were four main gates of the town facing the four cardinal points of the compass. Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra, one of the oldest code of Hindu polity and sociology, mentions the designations of the four principal gates of the Aryan town or village. The northern gate was called the Brāhma Gate, that is, the gate dedicated to Brahmā, the Creator. The eastern gate was named Aindra Gate, one dedicated to Indra, the lord of the eastern quarter of the heavens, represented by the rising Sun, for both Indra and Sun being the sons of Aditi were identified. Yama, the Lord of Death, lorded over the southern quarters, and the gate, on the south, was dedicated to him and named Yāmya Gate after him. The western gate derived its name Saināpatya Gate from Senāpati or Kārtikeya, the commander-in-chief of the gods.¹ The author of the Agni Purāṇa christens the main gates in a different way.² He says that the entire plot should be divided into interlineal chambers as laid down in the case of the vāstumaṇḍal. The eastern gate should be over the chamber of the diagram dedicated to the god of the day and included within the thirty chambers occupied by the gods Īśa etc., in the present instance. The southern gate should be raised over the chamber of the vāstumaṇḍal held sacred to the Gandarvas, while the western gate of the town should be constructed over the chamber assigned to the god of the ocean, the northern gate having been reared on the chamber dedicated to Soma. On each side of the gates the rooms should be low-roofed, extending over a considerably large area, for the gates had to bear the brunt of any frontal attack. The gates should be six cubits wide, so as to admit elephants and other large animals passing under the archways. Besides these, there were four subsidiary gates in the four corners of the city, guarded over by the deities presiding over them. In practice the number of gates varied with the area and necessity of the town. We get from Megasthenes's accounts of Pāṭaliputra that the city had sixty-four gates over-arched by lofty towers.