Town Planning in Ancient India c9.59

c9.59

Special attention was devoted to the trimming of the intersections of roads. They were either triangular as when one road abuts on another or quadrangular as when two roads cross one another¹ or circular as in the case of Nandyāvarta town at the centre of which converge eight streets. These intersections were given definite shapes and were very much widened by straightening the projecting angles of the adjacent building plots. Thus we read in the Harivamśa that the sixteen cross-sections formed by the eight large streets of Dvārāvatī, four running transverse to the four others, were very wide.² On these cross-roads of the village or town were situated the council-trees or pavillions where elders of the village chatted together or laid their heads together to discuss village politics.³ Bhuvaneswar has its great tree in the centre of the parting of three roads. The pedestals round these trees served the purpose of a dais and the trees were therefore called council-trees. On some cross roads one would find wells or fountains or water-sheds. I observed at Bharatpur one such well attached to a water-shed (i.e., a house where drinking water is supplied to passers-by free of charge) made of rough-hewn stone at the junction of three roads. In some cases lamp