Kautilya's Arthashastra, a treatise on statecraft, devotes detailed prescriptions to the fortified capital (durga): its siting, ramparts and moats, the division of the town into quarters by caste and craft, the placement of temples, markets and granaries, and rules for roads, water and fire safety. It treats the city as an instrument of revenue, defence and administration. The text fuses practical urban regulation with a theory of the well-ordered state.
It is the principal early Indian theorisation of the planned, governed city as a tool of royal power and political economy.
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