Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c8.46

c8.46

At length Megasthenes came in sight of the Royal City. It stood at the junction of the Ganges and the Son⁵, and presented an imposing appearance⁶. It was in the shape of a parallelogram, and was surrounded by vast walls of brick, with a wooden palisade in front, pierced with loopholes for archery. The wall had sixty-four gates and five hundred and seventy towers; it was eighty stadia long on its longer sides, and fifteen stadia long on the shorter. On the two sides not protected by the rivers, ran a huge moat, filled with the waters of the Son, into which it flowed. This moat, six hundred feet broad and thirty cubits deep, protected the town and also carried off the drainage. The city was one of the strongest in the world, but like most of the towns of India at that time, it was built chiefly of wood and unburnt brick. It was the custom, says Megasthenes, to use wood where floods were common, and brick and mud when the buildings were on elevated spots. This is the reason why so little has survived of the early architecture of India. Two generations later, the use of stone became common, and Aśoka crowned the capital with a gigantic stone palace, exquisitely carved. Centuries afterwards, a Chinese pilgrim, wandering among the ruins of the then deserted city, gazed with awe upon the huge stone blocks scattered here and there, and declared that they could be the work of "no mortal hands." Excavations are now proceeding upon the site of Pāṭaliputra, and the accuracy of the account of Megasthenes has received fresh confirmation. The wall and palisade were unearthed some years ago.