Kartik looked at Ganesh, smiling. ‘What a brilliant idea, dada!’

‘Yes. Instead of building a bridge over the moat they have built a tunnel underneath it. And the door to the tunnel merges completely into the cobbled ground, thus being effectively camouflaged.’

‘The entire ground around the moat is cobbled. This will prevent animal tracks from appearing around the tunnel entries.’

‘Unless an enemy knows exactly where the entrance is, he can never find a way to cross the moat and enter the city.’

Nandi looked at Gopal. ‘Your tribe is brilliant, Panditji.’

Gopal smiled politely.

As the elephants moved towards the city gates, the passengers noticed large geometric patterns along the walls. They were a series of concentric circles boxed within a single perfect square that skirted the outermost circle. It seemed to symbolise the aerial layout of Ujjain. The circular fort wall of the city was not an accident but the culmination of what the Vasudevs believed was the perfect geometric design.

‘We have built the entire city in the form of a mandal,’ said Gopal.

‘What is the mandal, Panditji?’ asked Shiva.

‘It’s a symbolic representation of an approach to spirituality.’

‘How so?’

‘The square boundary of the moat symbolises Prithvi, the land we live on. It is represented by a square that is bound on four sides, just like our land which is also bound by the four directions. The space within the square represents Prakriti or nature, as the land that we live on is uncultured and a wild jungle. Within it, the path of consciousness is the path of the Parmatma, which is represented by the circle.’

‘Why a circle?’

‘The Parmatma is the supreme soul. It is infinite. And if you want to represent infinity through a geometric pattern, you cannot do better than with a circle. It has no beginning. It has no end. You cannot add another side to it. You cannot remove a side from it. It is perfect. It is infinity.’

Shiva smiled.

A bird’s eye view of Ujjain would show that within the circular fort wall, there were five tree-lined ring roads that had been laid out in concentric circles. The outermost road skirted the fort walls. The remaining four were arranged in concentric circles of decreasing diameter. The smallest ring road circled the massive Vishnu temple at the centre of the city. Twenty paved radial roads extended in straight lines from the outermost ring road to the innermost.

These roads effectively divided Ujjain into five zones. The outermost zone, between the fourth and the fifth ring road, had massive wooden stables for various domesticated animals such as cows and horses. The pride of place was occupied by the thousands of well-trained elephants. The next zone, between the third and the fourth ring road, was for the residences of the novices and trainees. It also housed their schools, markets and entertainment districts. The zone between the second and the third ring road housed the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras amongst the Vasudevs. The one between the first and the second ring road housed the Brahmins, the community which administered the tribe of Vasudevs. And within the first ring road, in the heart of the city, was the holiest place in Ujjain, their central temple.