Chapter 1b - Origin and Growth of Indian Towns

The story of the origin and growth of towns is really very fascinating. The natural laws governing it are universal. Sometimes a village develops into a great town and sometimes simple shrine dedicated to a deity becomes not only the renowned centre of pilgrimage but also gets converted into a big temple city. An awkward fortress or citadel sometimes has resulted into a capital city and a market place into a big commercial town. Some of the biggest Indian towns had their beginning in a group of villages. Great cities like Bombay and Madras, Chittogong and Kaveripum-pattinam rose out of a necessity for a trading post through the sea. The sacred banks of the sacred rivers like Gaṅgā, Yamuna, Kāverī, Godāvarī, Rāvī, Sindhu, Brahmaputra, to mention only the sacred-most, gave rise to many a city in ancient India. The Pauranic, the Epic and the Buddhist—all the the three ancient traditions glorify the Sacred Seven Cities of India—Ayodhyā, Mathura, Māyā, Kāñcī [Kanchi], Avantī etc. etc.

Thus it is evident that the rise of towns in India or elsewhere is the fulfilment of the ideas as well as the necessities of life. It is a concrete expression of the motive forces governing the civilization and culture of man. It is the noblest monument of human art and concepts.

Dutta says:

“In its genesis is unrapped upto a great measure the evolution of the civilization which built it. In Europe this is more true where cities were the making of civilization and history.”

In India the evolution of towns presupposes two fundamental factors namely; whether they evolved consciously or unconsciously, what may be termed as Svataḥ-pravṛtta or Para-pravṛtta. It is only a broadway characterization, and represents two extremes which is more true in Modern India rather than in its forerunner.The truth however lies midway between these two extreams. Accordingly in case of Svataḥ-pravṛtta category of towns, the natural advantages and easy communications must be viewed as the contributory factors. A market or temple, facilities of easy access and conveyance, especially by water, that is, prominent trade routes, navigable rivers or seas, a satrapy or fortress, the sacred bank of a sacred river etc. may be deemed as some of the natural advantages which contributed to the growth of the towns.

In the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra XVIII entitled ‘Nagarādisañjñā the following nine synomyms have been given which to my mind unfold in a way the origin and growth of towns:

1. Nagara,
2. Puṣkara,
3. Sadana,
4. Mandira,
5. Sāmparāyika,
6. Sadma,
7. Durga,
8. Nivāsa,
9. Kṣaya and
10. Kṣitilaya.

The Sadana, Sadma, Kṣaya, etc. are synonyms of houses which also indicate that a group of houses develops into a village and with the aforesaid advantages it consequently emerges into a fullfledged town. Similarly Puṣkara indicates to the evolution of those towns which rise on the bank of rivers or develop on the sea-shore. Durga, as already indicated is nothing but a fortified town, the origin of which may be traced from a citadel or fortress and Mandira, the temple, as we shall see, in India, they have been the nucleus of the development of great towns—the temple-cities of India.

This is also supported by the following synonyms of Pura or town in the “Śabda-kalpadruma” the famous lexicon:—

1. Geha [Geham],
2. Haṭṭādiviśiṣṭa-sthāna [sthānam],
3. Vahugrāmīyavyavahāra-sthāna,
4. Purī,
5. Nagara,
6. Pattana [Pattanam],
7. Sthānīya [Sthānīyam],
8. Kaṭaka [Kaṭakam],
9. Paṭṭa [Paṭṭam],
10. Nigama and
11. Puṭabhedana [Puṭabhedanam].

A brief notice of these synonyms may be taken to bring home the implications of these words as to why they arc all called towns or pura:

1. Geha [Geham]—a house, rather a patriarchal family is the nucleus round which developed villages of the type of ‘Eka-bhoga’ in the definition of Manuṣyālaya-candrikā appended in the end where a single patriarch with his family and retinue lives. Such types of villages are still found in Bengal, the Pārās of Duttas, Ghoṣas, Banerjees and Mukherjees. In ancient India such pārās were called gotras. Such petty villages combined themselves and rose to great towns.

2. Haṭṭādiviśiṣṭasthāna [Haṭṭādiviśiṣṭasthānam] and 3. Vahugrāmīya-vyavahārasthāna [vyavahārasthānam]

Both these words signify that an Indo-Aryan city was a market-village grown to greatness. In the states like U.P. and Punjab, a village is only a hamlet round about which is the vast expanse of paddy fields. There must be a market to serve the needs. It is this, the market place, surrounded by so many hamlets that were the Indian towns in embryo. This is the significance of both these synonyms. B. B. Datta’s observation on the significance of the haṭṭādi-viśiṣṭasthāna, may be quoted:

“Moreover, the sites of great cities have often been indicated by some nascent industry—viz., a mine, a bed of flint, a layer of clay useful for household utensils. In cases like these it is quite possible that villages which have specialised in any art, working upon local materials, have grown into towns. Who can say that the importance of the localities which once developed into the famous towns, of Dacca noted for its finest muslin, of Kṛshṇanagar renowned for clay modelling, of Murshidabad distinguished for its silk-clothings, of Golkunda famous for its dimonds, of Agra known for its perfumery and marble works, was not partially derived from their excellent local manufactures which commanded a respectable market beyond the limits of the manufactories and that they were not the market -places where the artisans brought their articles for sale? There can also be cited here many modern instances of such factory towns, to wit, Jheria and Jamshedpur.”

4 Pattana [Pattanam] and 5. Puṭabhedana—The former is also a commercial town. It is a sort of emporium. The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra however takes it differently as we shall see. Datta observes:

“The necessity of a trading post led to the growth of many commercial towns in India, as also in other countries, From the very earliest times it has been customary for several tribes to share a common trysting place where they held their councils> and bartered their goods in the common markets.”

The definition of Pattana (see ahead) as given in Mayamata [Mayamatam] testifies to this nature. Mr. Venkatarama Ayyar, furnished us with an instance of such a commercial town:

“Kaveripumpattinam is a very ancient city which was once a flourishing sea-port and a great centre of commerce. It is the Khabiros Emporion of the Greeks. It is also known as Pukar or the city at the mouth of the Kaveri. It had a splendid harbour and a light-house. This ancient sea-port which had an expensive commerce has ceased to be of importance owing to the silting up of the Kaveri”

Moreover

“River sites. Sea-coasts, especially, the mouths of rivers offer the best facilities for the origin and growth of cities, because a river is not only a means of communication with the interior of the country, a way of transport and locomotion, but it also offers an outlet unto the outer world, thus fostering and encouraging commerce. Rivers are national assets of no mean importance. Even in times of antiquity when the intinerant Aryans were spreading their civilisation and modern commercialism was out of the question, the great rivers of India offered the best routes for their spread and advance. Hence the first Indo-Aryan colonies were planted on the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges. Aryāvarta was the country where Aryan civilisation was promulgated first and this is the part of India which was watered by the above two great river systems, viz., the Indus and the Ganges. Besides, a coast belt, a river side, or a mountain valley is as easy defence in times of war as of access in times of peace These have also a never-failing sanitary importance. To these reasons combined with local advantages we owe the evolution of a great many Indo-Aryan settlements in the shape of riparian towns. It should be observed here that the orthodox treatises make it a rule to establish towns on the right bank of a river. Consequently all Hindu towns in India that are situated on the river lie on its right side.—Dutta.”

Accordingly such, riparian towns illustrate the type of Puṭabhedana.

6. Nigama:—is also a commercial centre as well as a variety of fort as we shall see.

7. Puri and 8. Nagara:—These need not be dwelt at length. They are too familiar to be expatiated upon. The seven ancient Indian sacred Puris are on every body’s lips. These were not only hallowed by their greatness but also famous for renowned imperial seats having beautiful palaces and other specialities of great town. The copious description of Ayodhyā in Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa may be purviewed.

As regards Nagara, though it has become too common and popoular a word, it signifies a very fascinating origin. We know that there is a very advanced architectural style, the Nāgara style with especial reference to temple-architecture. Sanskrit ‘Nagara’ in this connection may be studied with Tamil Nakar. It is used variously in ancient Tamil literature to mean a house, a temple, a palace or a castle and a city. It is thus in a nutshell the chief dynamic principle of ancient town-planning that these separate items should be so co-ordinated and each assigned such an important place in the city that that the arrangement conduces to the efficiency of town life.

The word ‘mandira’ in Sanskrit also means a house and a town, as we have already seen. Accordingly looking through the hazes of the long-gone past, we shall find a holy shrine or temple in lieu of a good many Indian cities of today. In India it is a truism to say that a temple was a city in the making. Salubrious surrounding, perennial source of water like a large lake or tank leafy trees, plants full of flowers luxuriant vegetation, all connoting the fertility of the soil in the vicinity of temple ensure a rise of dwellings around it. Its sacredness, its renown, its priests and paṇḍitas famous for their scholarship and leadership of men, all taken together constitute the maxim that the temple was a city in making. Such temple-cities abound in India.

Again in very many instances, a temple in ancient India constituted a university in miniature. Datta says.

“In process of time the importance and reputation of the temple, its deity, and its sage extended beyond the local limits. Hindus, in their old age or when they renounce the world generally love to raise their humble cottages in places of pilgrimage and some pilgrims would therefore take their permanent abode there. With the increasing population shops were started; resting houses were erected. It may be, the place grew and grew until a king selected the site for establishing his castle. What was before a secluded place with a solitary shrine was at once made into a full-fledged city.”

Further more it is significant to note that the plan of temples especially in Southern India correspond to that of an Indo-Aryan village or town in its salient features.

9, 10 and 11:—Sthānīya [Sthānīyam], Kaṭaka [Kaṭakam] and Paṭṭa [Paṭṭam]:—

All denote defence. It was an ancient custom both in India and elsewhere to plan fortresses for efficiency of administration and government in the midst of villages which were grouped under their jurisdiction and supervision. The celebrated author of Arthaśāstra, the great Kauṭilya prescribes such a canon of political planning:

“There shall be a ‘Sthānīya’ (a fortress of that name) in the centre of eight hundred villages, a ‘Droṇamukha’ in the centre of four hundred villages, a ‘Kharvāṭikā’ in the centre of two hundred villages, and a ‘Saṅgrahaṇa’ in the midst of a collection of ten villages”

These out-posts favoured the growth of towns and sometimes capital cities about them. A good many old cities show this genesis. The names of Cuttack (Kaṭaka), Sialkot, Nagarkot, Mangalakot, justify this genesis in as much as ‘Kaṭaka’ or ‘Koṭa’ means a fort. The word ‘Gotra’ is full of geneological and defencive implication. It originally meant an enclosure for kine (“gāḥ trāyante'smin tat”) the respective property and possession, the cows of a particular family of our old patriarchs, the Ṛṣis and therefore it applied to denote a family descended from one of the several patriarchs.

This is what Max Muller also points out as the connection between the etymological and secondary meanings of Gotra.

“In ancient times, when most wars were carried on, not to maintain the balance of power of Asia or Europe, but to take possession of good pasture, or to appropriate large herds of cattle; the hurdles grew naturally into the walls of fortresses, the hedges became strongholds; an Anglo-Saxon tun, a close German (zaun) a town; and those who lived behind the same walls were called a ‘Gotra’, a family, a tribe, a race”—Chips from a German Workshop.

Thus the implication of Sthāniya [Sthāniyam] and ‘Kaṭaka [Kaṭakam]’ is clear. As regards ‘Paṭṭa [Paṭṭam]’, it is derived from ‘paṭṭa’ a slab which denotes a hill-fortress and hill-forts giving rise to towns is well known in history. Some of the towns in Rajasthana e.g. Chittorgarh is a very good example illustrative of this truth. B. B. Datta, however, takes it as a crossing of highways which also illustrates the same implication. These highways mean the highways on the out-skirts of mountains.

Some notice is taken of practically all the ‘paryāyas’ having a considerable sense to formulate our theory that the origin and growth of Indian town is not only illustrative of them, but also revolves round them.

Now remain two more questions. How these individually explain the dictum of svataḥ and para pravṛtta categories and how villages have contributed to the growth of Indian towns.

The sthānīya, kaṭaka, paṭṭa types of towns explain the para-pṛvratta type and the rest of the svataḥ-pravṛtta one. The grouping of villages tantamount to the evolution of a big city or great town as is illlustrated in an ancient city, the famous Pataliputra.

Havell rightly remarks:

“The wonderful organisation of the Chandragupta’s empire, of which Megasthenes gives us glimpses, was not the creation of the Mauryan statesmen, but the centralisation of the social and economic activities of the self-governing Indo-Aryan village communities. Pataliputra itself was only an aggregation of Indian villages joined together by spacious parks (the sacred groves) and stately avenues”.

Finally in ancient India or for the matter of any other country the military camps were also contributory to the rise of great towns or capital cities. This is the implication why ‘Śibira’ which is also a variety of Nagara and Durga. The un-settled condition of the political power in especially the early medieval and later medieval history of India fully speaks of this development. Datta also supports it, that is to say a king had to change his royal seat from place to place and where he settled for some years, there was built up the royal palace and the quarters of his entourage including the army and the military officers. The same circumstances operated to cause wealth and commerce, arts and literature, to follow thither and thus to develop the royal citadel into a magnificent metropolis. We all know how Udaya Singh, the Rana of Chitore, father of the great Pratap, defeated by Mohammadan arms under Akbar, took refuge in a sequestered mountain valley where he had already excavated a magnificent lake. Now he had his royal palace built on the embankment of this lake. The subjects followed their king and what followed was the gradual evolution of the noble town of Udayapur, extolled by all travellers for its splendid plan, architectural beauty, natural setting, and imposing grandeur.