Chapter 1 - The Layout of the City

Summary

The oldest literary documents of the Indo-Arians, namely the Vedas, communicate to us the image of a rural way of life. An entirely different way of life is revealed by the oldest texts of the Buddhists and Jainas, as also by the great epics: they occur before a background of an urban culture. Flourishing cities form the centers of mighty states. The life of the city-dwellers is illuminated from all sides, while that of rural settlements and their inhabitants decline into obscure ahistoricity.

Strewn among their tales, sagas and legends are numerous descriptions of cities. Thus, Ayodhyā, the residence of the epic hero Rāma, is portrayed in the Rāmāyaṇa in the following manner:

(7) 12 miles long and 3 miles wide is the great and splendid city. It has well-laid-out main streets (8) and is graced with a large and well-laid-out royal highway that is bestrewn with fallen flowers and continuously sprinkled with water. (9) King Dašaratha … lived in this city —(10) it had gates with door-panels, well-laid-out interior shops, and all sorts of war machines and weapons; in it lived all kinds of craftsmen; (11) crowded with heralds and bards.

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