Vol. 8, Issue 7, Part D (2022)

Abstract
City planning is one of the earliest technological advances that helped achieve a well-planned society. Demarcation of spaces as private, semipublic, public, residential, commercial, and administrative, paved way for a balanced organic growth of settlements. Study of cities can be attempted taking into consideration several primary and secondary sources. In the case of south India, the towns are predominantly temple centric. The agamas and other traditional manuals on architecture and planning elaborates the steps to be followed from the scratch. The settlements that developed based on sacred sites became centers of religious significance. It was easier for the monarchs to develop and control the centers as temple centric settlements. Traditional ways of livelihood were groomed in such centers and the temple became the central point of focus. Silasasanas or epigraphic evidences on stone became a tradition available from the Pallava times in temples. Temple wars bare testimony to the development of the settlements through periodic documentation as lithic records. A close study of the epigraphic documents in a chronological fashion gives a deep insight into the development of the city.