The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c28.25

v1.c28.25

The art of fortification was well understood. As we can learn from the Greek and native descriptions, and as we can see depicted on the monuments of Sāñchī and Bhārhut, the great cities were provided with ditches, ramparts, and walls of earth, wood or brick³, having battlements, towers, covered ways, salient angles, water-gates, and portcullises, with a wide street running round the interior face. There were guard-houses for troops (*gulma*) in the different quarters. In principle the towns were of rectangular shape and divided into four regions, each under a special official and composed of wards. The houses were generally of wood, and of two or three storeys⁴, the more splendid ones including several courts, one behind the other. There were royal palaces, workshops, storehouses, arsenals, and prisons⁵. The streets were provided with watercourses draining the houses and issuing into the moat: against misuse of them, or of the cemeteries outside, by deposit of rubbish or dead bodies, by loosing animals, by conveyances not under proper charge, by funerals conducted through irregular ways or at unlawful hours, penalties are laid down. The houses were forbidden to have windows overlooking each other, except across the street. The precautions against fire included the provision of vessels of water 'in thousands' in the streets: every householder must sleep in the forepart of his dwelling, and he is under the obligation of rendering assistance in case of fire, while arson is punished by burning alive. The trumpet sounds the beginning and end of the nocturnal interval, during which, except on special occasions⁶, none must stir abroad. Approach to the guard-houses and palaces is prohibited, as also is music at unseasonable times. The city chief reports all incidents, and takes charge of lost and ownerless property.