Town planning in Harappan cities

Cities built to a plan

The larger Harappan cities were not allowed to grow just anyhow. They were built according to precise plans. Their wide streets were often oriented to the cardinal directions, north–south and east–west, with smaller lanes between them. Most cities seem to have been surrounded by a fortification, a massive wall built for protection.

Upper town and lower town

Most cities had two distinct parts. The upper town is where the local elite, such as rulers, officials, administrators and often priests, probably lived. The lower town is where common people lived. Dholavira was different: it had three zones, and in its middle town houses lined perpendicular streets. At Kalibangan in Rajasthan, a wide street of the lower town can still be seen.

Houses and buildings

Some large buildings were used for collective purposes, for instance warehouses where goods to be transported were stored. Individual houses of various sizes lined the streets and lanes. Interestingly, the quality of construction was the same for small and big houses. The buildings were generally made of bricks; at Dholavira, the foundations of most buildings were made of stone.

The Great Bath

The famous Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is a small but elaborate tank, about 12 × 7 metres. Its bricks were carefully laid and then covered with natural bitumen, a form of tar, to keep the water in. Small rooms surrounded it, one with a well, and a drain in one corner let it be emptied and refilled with fresh water.

What was it for? Archaeologists have suggested a public bath, a bath for the royal family only, or a tank for religious rituals. The first is now ruled out, because most houses in Mohenjo-daro had their own bathrooms. With no inscription, text or traveller’s account to help, the other two ideas are still debated.

Drains and wells

The Harappans gave great importance to water management and cleanliness. Homes often had separate areas for bathing, connected to a larger network of drains that generally ran below the streets and carried waste water away; Lothal’s drains are a good example. In Mohenjo-daro, people drew water from hundreds of wells made of bricks. Elsewhere, water may have come from ponds, nearby streams or human-made reservoirs.

Dholavira’s reservoirs and Lothal’s dockyard

Dholavira, in the dry Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, built at least six large reservoirs with stones or even cut into the rock. One rock-cut reservoir is 33 metres long, and the largest measured 73 metres. Most were connected by underground drains to harvest and share water. On the coast, Lothal had a huge basin, 217 metres long and 36 metres wide, a little longer than two football grounds. It was probably a dockyard, used to receive and send boats.

What the plans tell us

Building and cleaning so many drains, wells and reservoirs needed many workers, precise instructions and regular upkeep. This suggests some form of ruler or municipal administration, though, as the book says, archaeologists’ answers are not always final.

Read about the whole civilisation in the Harappan civilisation. Answers to the textbook questions are in the NCERT solutions for Chapter 6; see all of Chapter 6 notes.