Town Planning in Ancient India c9.52

c9.52

The fact that the two principal roads of every town and village of ancient India continued up to the main highways of the empire and thus constituted the most important channels for the ebb and flow of commerce was one of the reasons why the Hindu town-planners did not advocate diagonal streets in their town-plans. One of the functions of these diagonal streets in modern times is to provide direct short-cuts between railway termini or between the railway stations and the docks. It is obvious that the main streets of Indian towns adequately provided for similar through-traffic. Another reason for these radiating streets is that they afford easy and short access to important public buildings and places, such as banks or markets. But the peculiar custom of the Indian towns of centralising and judiciously allocating the public buildings at the centre, and round about it, obviated this necessity. Hence when we consider that these radial streets are responsible for ill-shaped buildings and rooms at the cross-sections—which, by the way, should be the important and picturesque edifices—and also that the main streets and the intelligent distribution of buildings splendidly served the purpose of diagonal streets of modern towns, we cannot but admire the skilful manipulation of the whole town-plan by the Indian civic architects which could only proceed from a thorough grasp of the subject.