Chapter 7 - Fortification

The most distinguishing features of the canons of Town-Planning in ancient and medieval India were elaborate rules on the fortification of the towns. The scheme of a fortified town according to the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra (Chapter X. 1-2) comprised the following five principal elements of of defense:—

1. Prākāra—the surmounting parapets, i.c. the surrounding walls.
2. Parikhā—moats, ramparts girt by large, wide and deepditches,
3. Dvāra—the gates and gopuras,
4. Aṭṭālakas—towers and the turrets.
5. Rathyā—chariot-roads connecting the town with the country.

It may be noted that there were so many other architectural components like Kapiśīrṣakas, Kāṇḍa-vāriṇīs, Carika with Vedīs, Sopānas, and Niryūhas etc. (10.30-34) together with the beautiful belts of plantations all round the moat, full of lotuses and laid with a host of Howers bearing trees towards the interior of the town; while the exteriors were laid with thorny bushes to protect them from the easy spoils (ch. 10. 22-24), to add to the beauty of the town and make it at the same time comfortable and health giving with the provision of free air and profusion of sun-shine, plantation, and the like.

This topic of fortification is common, both to the towns and the forts. Ancient cities were fortified towns. There was not much difference between the laying out of a town and a fort. There are two broad classifications of forts—the natural and artificial. The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra in its 45th Chapter entitled ‘The eight-fold Architecture’—Aṣṭāṅga-lakṣaṇa, (also vide the Yuktikalpataru) divides the first category of the forts, i.e. natural ones as sixfold, water fort, mud fort, forest fort, desert fort, mountain fort (on the top) and cave fort (Guhādurga—cf. F. N. verse 39). That is, a natural fort is one which is rendered inaccessible to hostile encroachments by its advantageous situation secured by natural defences, like mountains, rivers, marshy lands, deserts and forests. The use of Natural forts is evidence of the skill of the ancient town planners in utillising local natural barriers and in turning them into best fortifications by slight manipulations and modifications. As per the second classification, forts like Śibira, Vāhinīmukha, Sthānīya, Droṇaka, Saṃviddha or Vardhaka, Kolaka, Nigama and Skandhāvāra form the varieties of the artificial forts described by Mānasāra (Ch. X) and also by Mayamata (Ch. X). This Śibira variety of forts, which includes Skandhāvara is, according to the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra a different architectural object altogether, (vide eight limbs of the body of architecture. Ch. 45.6) where the construction of the forts and the planning of the royal camps (Śibira) are two distinct things.

The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra (VIII-36 and onwards) while recommending the four-fold sites for the laying out of forts shows a clear cognizance of this fact with the provision of these natural defences—the mountain (top level), the forest (a belt of dense trees round water reservoir), the river-islands, and the artificial make up with the parapets and and ramparts, etc. Here the first three serve as natural forts, the last is the constituent of the artificial one.

The point to which attention is drawn is that, generally speaking these details of fortification in these texts give an impression that the towns of old were militarily planned, and the civic art of those days, in this field of architecture, was subservient to military requirements or the defensive character of the capital cities of those days. The fact, however is, that in the past in India as well as in Europe (cf. Greek or Roman towns, e.g. Florance and Sparta) ramparts and trenches constituted an integral part of town planning. To quote B. B. Dutta, “They formed the sine qua non of Aryan habitation”—T. P. in Ancient India, page 70.

When a town is planned, with all its accompaniments such as healthy residences, devotional places, public halls and common pools and wells as reservoirs of water, and public parks, garden belts, scattered orchards and flower lines and lotus beds, it becomes the supreme consideration of the master town-planner to have security considerations.

Let us now proceed with the canons of fortification of a town as laid down in the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra These canons centre round the five parts of the fortification as described in the very opening lines of the chapter. The first place in this technique goes to the formation of the mound of the rampart, i.e. the Vapra. “The mound, the proto-type of the skilled Vapra or rampart is the first mile-stone, the indelible landmark towards the various gradations of Aryan progress and civilisation” in the evolution of the ordered living,

The process of the formation of the Vapra is a joint operation with that of the moats—the Parikhās. It first consists in the layout of the ground, the Vapra-bhū round the town parallel to the Ghaṇṭā-mārga, running round the town (Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra 10.16) and its dimension too should follow the dimension of the Ghaṇṭā-mārga, i.e. 24, 20, or 16 hastas of width (according to the three categories of the town—large, intermediate and the small (—ibid, 17). This layout being done and the site plan accomplished, three moats in the dimension of the Mahārathyā (12, 10, 8 hastas as the case may be—vide three sizes of the town), should be dug out, round this selected site of the Vapra and then all the earth so dug having been pressed by the trampling of the bulls is to be utilised, three-fourth or half of the whole lot in the raising of the mound in the size of an elephant. Now the remaining earth is to be utilised in levelling up the unlevelled grounds in the town. Thus cleared and cleaned all the three moats ate to be made puccā cither with stones or bricks.

Again, these then should be filled up with water drawn through the pipe laid, connecting the water reservoirs, like rivers, tanks or deep broad wells and some mechanism also to be laid up for the periodical clearance of the stagnant water.

“Here are to be nurtured the lotus and lily plants in the water to add to the beauty and the crocodiles to be let off in them, so that no enemy could swim across them with safety”.

On their sides towards the town, a good many plantations—orchards, gardens, flower-beds are to be laid. As regards the external sides, they should be planted with thorny plants for strengthening the fortification. The number of moats, their formation and other details as given in the text tally more with Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra than any other extant work. He too prescribes three moats round the fort “fourteen, twelve and ten daṇḍas respectively in width with depth less by one quarter or by one-half of the width, square at their bottom, one-third as wide as their top” (Book 11, Ch. 111). The moats of Pataliputra, the Imperial city of the renowned Chandra Gupta Maurya were constructed in confirmity to the rules laid down in the Arthaśāstra. It is corroborated by the accounts of Magasthenese [Megasthenes] also.

These moats, apart from their utility as fortification of the town, had manifold uses. Firstly, they were an important part of the complex drainage system of the city. Secondly, they supplied the quantity of mud necessary for the erection of the city walls and filling up the low bogs and marshes of the city ground and also make it slant towards one direction so necessary according to the time-honoured tradition of the Vāstu-śāstra. Again, in case of emergency, as these moats were connected with rivers, they cold be used to inundate the city.

After taking notice of the joint formation of the Vapra and the Parikhā, we now come to the third member of the fortification, namely the Prākāra wall—the parapets raised on the ramparts. It is to be macle puccā by filling it up with the massive stone to make it look a grand gigantic structure. Its width is prescribed as 12, 10, 8 hastas as the town is, and the height recommended is 17, 15, and 13 hastas.

The maximum height of the parapet was to be 17 hastas, and minimum 13 hastas. The Prākāra was 12 hastas (18 ft.) in width at its bottom. These parapets were decorated with the battlements like the Kapiśīrṣakas—Kaṅgooras. Their height should be one hasta. Another element of beautification and defence was Kāṇḍavāriṇī, the Chāldivārī.

It may be noted here that the number of parapets, the Prākāra walls upon the rampart (Vapra) was generally one. But Pataliputra is reported to have three such walls. In the Artha-śāstra mention is made of several parapets. Kauṭilya advises odd or even number of these walls with an intermediate space between them. Again one pertinent point regarding these parapets is their height. Too much of height as advocated by some of the texts (cf. Brahmāṇḍa-Purāṇa, Ch. 103) is a great hindrance to the proper ventilation of the city, particularly the adjoining area. The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra, therefore, moderates its specification and prescribes the limit of seventeen hastas. Śukrācārya’s remarks are more helpful (Ch.—“The wall of the town is to be made too high to be jumped across by robbers or enemies.”

The fourth element in the fortification is the raising of the towers on these parapets in all the four directions. These parapets were thus interspersed at regular intervals (100 hastas i.e. 150 ft.) with towers (Aṭṭālakas) and they were provided with moveable stair-cases, so constructed as to provide the comfortable ascent and descent. On the Prākāra wall were also laid the Kapiśīrṣakas (Kaṅgooras) the battlements and there were also Kāṇḍavāriṇīs (the Chāladivāraī), the small wall on this thick wall of Prākāra. In between them, thus was created a Carikā the passage on the Prakāra [Prākāra?] wall with all kinds of mouldings and projections like Vedikās and Niryūhas. It was also provided with stair-cases and the doors in between for the comfortable ascent and desent (10.34).

Pāṇini and Kauṭilya call this Carikā’—Devapatha and the following observation of Dr. V. S. Agarwal (vide—India as known to Pāṇini p. 139), is worth quoting:—

“He mentions devapatha at the head of the Gaṇa-Devapathādi, (V. 3-100, which again can be explained only in the light of Kauṭilya. This corroborative testimony from the Arthaśāstra is rather singular since no other work throws light on the meaning of the Pāṇinian word. According to Pāṇini the ‘Passage’ which resembles a ‘celestial passage” (devapatha) is called devapatha (V. 3.100). What can such a passage or road possibly be so as to observe the comparison involved? According to Kauṭilya, the wide road on the top of the parapet built along the line of battlements (indrakoṣas) was called devapatha (Arth. Text, II. 3, p 52; Trans, p. 51). The height of the brick fort-wall (Prākāra) above the mud-rampart (vapra) there is stated to be thirty six feet rising from the ground level and the battlements were built above it. The Devapatha extending along the city wall should be understood with reference to its great height resembling the celestial passage (devapatha) in the heavens, justifying the comparison of the former with the latter”.

The fifth member of the fortification is the gateways of the town. They were in the form of pyramidal towers of imposing aspect. They were called Gopuras literally the defensive structure of the town and thus fittingly adding to the fortification of the town. The Gopura of Prākāra was the same as Dvāra-aṭṭālaka of much older literature (see Arthaśāstra). It was the principal gateway in the wall of the fort. They formed a characteristic feature of the Indo-Aryan architecture. But, in my opinion, their employment was more common in religious architecture than the secular one. The South Indian temples and the temple-cities are the best illustrations. The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra as the founder of the secular architecture refrains from their application to towns and residential houses. These Gopuras have formed the fascinating architectural theme in the works like Mayamata (24th Chapter), Mānasāra (33rd Chap) and others of their group belonging to Dravidian Vāstu-Vidyā.

Their towers consisted of varying storeys, their number ranging from one to seventeen.

“The splendid art displayed in the gopuras is indeed wonderful and is a living monumental tribute to the high level of aesthetic culture and to the religious spirit of the Hindus” (T. P In Ancient India 101).

These gopuras were the gateways of the splendid edifices of the temples or temple cities. The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra, in the laying out of the principal entrances of the town recommends as many as twelve principal gates on the terminii of the Rāja-mārga and the Mahārathyā in all the directions. Their width was nine, eight or seven hastas on the Rāja-mārga and six, five and four hastas on the Mahārathyā. The Artha-śāstra of Kauṭilya mentions four principal gates on the four principal quarters and designates them as Brahma, Aindra, Yāmya and Saināpatya, according as they are laid on the North, East, South and West respectively (Book II, Chapter III).

Apart from these principal gates, the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra recommends other minor gates also technically termed as Vaktradvāra and Pakṣadvāa. The former variety is to be placed in the vicinity of the gates of the Rāja-mārga and Mahārathyā; the Pakṣadvāras are the side doors for the use of towns-men at odd hours when the main gate was closed.

Again these great gateways are to be provided with Pratolī, the gateway in the city wall. The word Pratolī in the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra has an imposing architecture, like that of the Gopura. Amarakoṣa (II.II-3) takes it as a synonym of Rathyā, a street and Dr. Acharya in his Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture (page 321) writes under Pratolī, “A gate-way sometimes provided with a flight of steps, a small turret, the main road of a town”. According to the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra, it is a storeyed building, of course adjoining the gate-way and having a super-structure of two storeys in which there are compartments (śālās) and porticos (Mūṣās) and so many other wooden components and the mouldings thereof, to present an edifice of imposing beauty and lustre. It is laid secure with the broad and high flanks of doors—Kapāṭa, (cf. Phalakas) with door bolts called Parigha.

The Hindi, Rajasthani and Gujarati word ‘Pauri’ is derived from Pratolī,

“pratolī paaulī pauli poli pauri”

Lastly another point in this fortification is that these gates were guarded by the sentinels patrolling and there was a sufficient equipment of the defensive arms and weapons such as a Vyālajālas and Śataghnīs (100 Killer) (cf. Ch. 10. 46).