The Village Its Physical Structure

Abstract

This chapter provides an account of the physical structure of Sripuram. It starts by presenting a brief account of the location of Sripuram in relation to important geographical and cultural landmarks. It then investigates its internal arrangements—the settlement pattern, the disposition of streets with regard to one another, the situation of temples and other community centres, etc. The values represented in the distribution of space in Sripuram are largely those of its traditional order. Sripuram proper is essentially a cluster of habitations having a certain geographical and social identity. The agraharam (or Brahmin villages) is in every sense of the term, a community. Sripuram as a whole constitutes a unit in a physical sense and, to a much lesser extent, in the social sense. The physical structure of the village has not meanwhile undergone any substantial change; it continues to reflect the primary cleavages of its traditional social structure.