On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s4.2

v1.c8.s4.2

"As to their inhabited towns and cities the quadrangular walls of the cities (or according to one text, of the various regions) are broad and high, while the thoroughfares are narrow tortuous passages. The shops are on the highways and booths (or, inns) line the roads. Butchers, fishermen, public performers, executioners, and scavengers have their habitations marked by a distinguishing sign. They are forced to live outside the city and they sneak along on the left when going about in the hamlets. As to the construction of houses and enclosing walls, the country being low and moist, most of the city-walls are built of bricks, while walls of houses and inclosures are wattled bamboo or wood. Their halls and terraced belvederes have wooden flat-roofed rooms, and are coated with chunam, and covered with tiles burnt or unburnt. They are of extraordinary height, and in style like those of China. The [houses] thatched with coarse or common grass are of bricks or boards; their walls are ornamented with chunam; the floor is purified with cow-dung and strewn with flowers of the season; in these matters they differ from us. But the Buddhist monasteries are of most remarkable architecture. They have a tower at each of the four corners of the quadrangle and three high halls in a tier. The rafters and roofbeams are carved with strange figures, and the doors, windows, and walls are painted in various colours. The houses of the laity are sumptuous inside and economical outside. The inner rooms and the central hall vary in their dimensions, and there is no rule for form or construction for the tiers of the terraces or the rows of high rooms. Their doors open to the east, and the throne faces east.