The Greeks in Bactria and India c12.42

c12.42

⁴ K. Rangachari, *IHQ* IV, 1928, pp. 102-3: according to the *Silpaśāstras*, if a city be square with four gates at north, east, south, west, the middle part must be a square with a temple at each corner and four roads connecting the four temples—a very different matter. (For his sources (one unpublished) see *IHQ* III, 1927, p. 813; the earliest *Silpaśāstras* are supposed to be fifth or sixth century A.D., *i.e.* Gupta period.) For the normal square in the middle of the city, containing the temples, palace, and ancillary buildings, with four broad streets demarcating it, (compare *e.g.* the Parthian square at Hatra), see also B. B. Dutt, *Town Planning in Ancient India* 1925 pp. 258-64. One of these late writers, Mānasāra, is said to refer to towns with two large streets crossing each other at right angles in the centre (Dutt p. 124); but none such is known, and it might be a Greek or Roman echo; all these writers deal only with *theory*. The usual belief (Rangachari, *IHQ* III p. 824) is that in *fact* Indian towns grew up haphazard, like Delos.