Town Planning in Ancient India c8.75

c8.75

The number of parapets or walls upon the ramparts (vapra) was generally one, but sometimes more. Pāṭaliputra is reported to have three such walls. Tourists must have observed the eight belts of walls and ditches round the garh or fort of Rāmpāl at Dacca. Kauṭilya advises several parapets. We have in the Arthaśāstra, "Above the ramparts, parapets in odd or even numbers and with an intermediate space of from 12 to 24 hastas (cubits) from each other shall be built of bricks." I need hardly remark here that these walls were almost invariably built of bricks. The Devī Purāṇa also specifies the height of the walls;—"The walls should be raised to nine cubits high according to rules laid down by the Muni."² According to Kauṭilya, "the parapets shall be raised to a height twice their breadth." The rule of the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa is that "the maximum height should be twenty cubits and a wall loftier than that is not conducive to good."¹ The reason for this, I think, is that, quite apart from economic grounds as well as considerations of defence, walls of inordinate height, planted as they were upon highly raised ramparts, would prevent the proper ventilation of the city, at least, over the plots adjoining the ramparts and might prove detrimental to the welfare of the town. But none of the above authors gives out the principle whereby they set a limit to the height of the walls, while Śukrāchāryya wisely refrains from setting any such arbitrary limit and, on the contrary, enunciates the rule thus: "The wall of the town is to be made too high to be jumped across by robbers or enemies."² He further adds that "the wall (prākāra) of the town is to be uniform in depth and should have its foundation to the extent of one-half or one-third of its height and have its width one half of its height."³