[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Architecture and art](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art) › [Town Planning in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925) › c8.130 # Town Planning in Ancient India c8.130 Town Planning in Ancient India c8.130 - **Language:** English ### [c8.130](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c8.130) I cannot conclude this chapter without some remarks about the practical utility of the characteristic boundaries and approaches of ancient towns. "They not only derive exceptional beauty and picture-like entity from their enclosure by ramparts and walls, but to this enclosure was due in no small measure the careful use of every yard of building space within the wall which had led to much of their picturesque effect and which also strengthened and sharpened the solidarity of their corporate life. These also accounted for the absence of that irregular fringe of half-developed suburbs and half-spoiled country which form such a hideous and depressing girdle around modern growing towns.”¹ Necessity of defence overbalanced the chances of congestion. To meet the latter contingency, settlements outside the walls were not infrequently made in times of peace. “There is always a necessity for securing some orderly line upto which the country and town may each extend and stop definitely, so avoiding the irregular margin of rubbish heaps and derelict building land which spoils the approach to almost all our towns to-day. The value of defining and limiting towns and suburbs is manifest.”² Outside the walls and ditches lay wide belts of jungle or agricultural land, or close sequestered retreats for hermits and philosophers. These belts served as invaluable breathing places, exquisite with birds and flowers; or, provided rich game-land for pleasant hunting excursions of the king and his suite. Again the high country roads leading to the towns, with their shading trees of luxuriant foliage planted in rows along both sides of them, afforded bracing and exhilarating walks, free from the noise and worry of street-traffic and thus secured to the citizens picturesque avenues for enjoying the charms of the country and afforded them pleasant relief from the stuffiness and aridity of town life. - [Previous: c8.129](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c8.129) - [Next: c8.131](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c8.131) - [Up: c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c8) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c8.130](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.art.dutt-1925.c8.130) · Pramāṇa