The Hindu Temple v1.c5.s7: The Organism of the Plan

The Hindu Temple v1.c5.s7

Language: English

v1.c5.s7.t1 A. The lines (sūtra) of the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala. — 2 parts
v1.c5.s7.t2 B. The intersections of the lines in the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala. — 1 part
v1.c5.s7.t3 C. Proportionate width of lines and intersections. — 8 parts

The Organism of the Plan

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The size of the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala is of no matter. It is coterminous with the building site, or with the extent of the Prāsāda or of a minimum standard size. In it are laid out the positions of the several buildings to be set up on the site and also the positions of the buttresses of the temple (Part VII). The lines by which the square plan is divided into small squares, the two diagonals of the plan and the "lesser diagonals", 4 or 8 in number, and drawn parallel to the former have a definite width, proportionate to the size of the plan. The width of the main diagonals in a plan of 81 squares measures as many finger breadths (aṅgula) as the side length of the small square measures in cubits (hasta; Br. S., LII. 62-63); and the straight lines have one and a half times this width. Their intersection (marma; a vital, or vulnerable spot) measures one eighth part of one square in the plan of 81 squares.⁸⁷ The division of the square and also the divisional lines themselves are measured in proportion to its total extent. No building, or part of the temple must be placed on these vital points.

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⁸⁷ The Marmas are of special importance in the site-plan. Where the Vāstumaṇḍala is co-extensive with the Prāsāda they affect the position of pillars in temples as described in the 'Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhara', ch. XLIX. In brick and stone temples such as are preserved the Marmas affect the positions of windows, buttresses, etc. of the wall of the Prāsāda.

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The archetypal measure (māna) of the line (sūtra) is known as Prāṇa, immanent Breath or Energy (pneuma).⁸⁸ By it is measured the width of the outline of one square in an 'ardha-kṣetra' (half field) of 360 squares ('Kāmikāgama', XVIII. 8). This half field of 360 units is part of a wider extent. The whole field has 720 units (8 × 9 × 10); or, if 360 is multipled by 72, or 9 × 8, which are the side lengths of the two types of the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala, the number 25920 results which is the number of years in the period of the precession of the equinoxes. From Ayodhyā, the impregnable stronghold (pur) of the gods, with its 8 Cakras and 9 doors, the whole field of 720 days and nights of the year is extended which is one of the units of cyclical time in the Vāstumaṇḍala.

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⁸⁸ Prāṇa is also the smallest unit of concrete (mūrta) time; it is the time needed for inspiration and expiration.

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Prāṇa, the breath of life, immanent Breath, in man, the microcosm, is one in principle with Brahman (Śaṅkarācārya, comm. 'Brahma Sūtra', III. 2. 7). In deep sleep (suṣupti) all the faculties of knowledge, sensation and action are withdrawn in Prāṇa. Prāṇa governs and is manifest in the vital functions of breathing, etc., which are called Vāyu, vital activity. In the 'Kāmikāgama' the lines (sūtra) are measured in terms of Prāṇa and Vāyu as archetypal measures. The Breath of life, immanent Breath, in the functions of breathing, etc., is the network that holds together the 'body' of the Vāstumaṇḍala. In its duration it lies extended.

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The immanent breaths (prāṇa) are the immortal parts of the body (Ś.B. X. 1. 4. 1). With them, drawn in a network of lines, the body of the Vāstupuruṣa lasts as long as the present aeon (kalpa). The lines are not mere geometrical connections; their prototype has the measure of Breath; they have direction and width; while they form a net cast over the plot, they also share in its extent, represent it in an aliquot ratio and their points of intersection are the vital parts and tender spots (marma) of the site. These must not be hurt or interfered with by setting up pillars, doors, or walls, on them.

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The identification of this body built of Breath which is coterminous with the Vāstumaṇḍala, with that of the builder who is the Yajamāna and patron, and with the plot, is no abstract theory. It is felt in the living tissue of the body of the donor who is the builder (kāraka) of the temple (‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’, LVI. 303). Were the organism of the ordered plot brought out of order and disturbed in its interknit functioning as plan and symbol, the builder would suffer in the corresponding parts of his body and earthly life; death will befall him should he obstruct by building on them, the main vital parts of the plan, its head, heart and so on; and minor evils will be his if he disregards the lesser junctions and lines. Builder and building are one; the building is a test of the health and probity of the builder, his ‘alter ego’, his second body; if the building be a sacred one, a temple, this second body is his sacrificial body born from a second birth, the conscious sowing of seed, into a prepared soil and the depositing of the Seed of the building to be which is the germ of the Puruṣa, the Essence that dwells in the body of the temple. This new birth and transubstantiation has for its level the surface within the limits of the maṇḍala.

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The places which must not be encroached upon by doors, walls or pillars, beams, etc. and windows (gavākṣa, vātāyana; Bṛ. S. Comm.; LII. 57, ‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’, XIII. 10-16), at the concurrence of the lines (sūtra) are listed on p. 55.⁸⁸ They are avoided by shifting for example the position of the respective parts of the building, to the right of the vulnerable points.⁹⁰ Similarly also nothing (no ‘dravya’) may be placed on the border or middle lines and the consequences are serious too, though not fatal, if the other orthogonals and the 2 diagonals are infringed (ib. XII. 23-36).⁹¹ The earlier texts however limit the tender spots to the concurrences of lines: (Br. S. LII. 57; ‘Viṣṇudharmottara’, Pt. II, ch. XXIX. 45-46)⁹² : The spots which are the most vulnerable and which must be avoided with great care, are in and around the Brahmasthāna, the centre of the square.

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⁸⁸ The ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ enumerates 9 specially vulnerable spots (atimarma) and gives the proportionate size of the tender spots (marma). These are grouped according to their importance and specified in the later texts according to the lines which meet, diagonals and orthogonals, and their number, at each respective crossing. The size of a vulnerable spot is given in the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ as 1/8th of a square (the whole plot being divided into 81 squares). The ‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’ however gives to the conjunction of 8 vaṃśas (=8 sūtras, at their meeting point) the extent of the tip of a hair (bālāgra); that is, the concurrence is just a point. The 1/8th of a small square of the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ does not correspond to the actual extent of ‘marma’; it appears more as a parcelled plot with the concurrence of the lines in its centre and agreed upon to be 1/8th of that of the small square. In the ‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’, the ‘sandhi’ or conjunction of lines has no magnitude. It is a point to be avoided when determining the position of the middle of door openings, pillars, etc. According to the ‘Kāmikāgama,’ XVIII, 9, Prāṇa and Vāyu are the prototypes of measurement of the width of the Sūtras. The Mahāvaṃśa has twice the width of the Anuvaṃśa, etc. The archetypal measure, Prāṇa, is one breath-duration. The standards of extension are its modifications. In a field of 3 cubits, the line (sūtra) measures one barley corn (yava); with an increase of the field by one cubit, the lines should be thicker by one Roma (hair; ib. 18-19). The relative size of a Marma in this text too, has the eighth part of a ‘pāda’. The measures generally used in Vāstu-Śāstra are: 1 Bālāgra [or Roma], tip of hair = 8 Rathareṇu (trasareṇu), mote of dust in a sun beam [1 Trasareṇu = 8 Paramāṇu, visible only to Yogins]; 8 Bālāgras = 1 Likṣa, nit; 8 Likṣas = 1 Yuka (louse); 8 Yukas = 1 Yava (barley corn); 8 Yavas = 1 aṅgula; 12 aṅgulas = 1 vitasti (span); 2 vitastis = 1 hasta (cubit) = 1 kiṣku; further units of measurement, increased by one aṅgula each time: (Prājāpatya, Dhanurmuṣṭi, Dhanugraha, etc.) are used for measuring temples (vimāna), sites (vāstu) and villages, etc., but ‘hasta’ or ‘kiṣku’ is the most generally used unit of measurements in objects of larger

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⁹⁰ This is described in the ‘Vāstuvidyā’, VI. 3-7 where it is shown how to avoid a coincidence of the Madhyasūtra of each of the buildings in the 4 directions, with the Madhyasūtra of the total site, etc. The Madhyasūtras of the buildings are drawn at a distance of 11, 9, 7, and 5 aṅgulas respectively, beginning from the east to the south; in the south, to the west, etc.

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⁹¹ It is generally enjoined that no doors, etc., must be placed on the orthogonals, diagonals, concurrences and the centre of the site.

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⁹² The ‘Agnipurāṇa’, ch. XCIII. 7-9, makes it clear that the concurrences of all the orthogonals and the following 12 types of concurrences are to be avoided; Mahāmarma, Anuja, Hala, Triśūla, Svastika, Vajra, Mahāsvastika, Sampuṭa, Trikaṭa, Maṇibandha, Saviśuddha and Padamarma (when making wells, etc.). Amongst the southern texts, the ‘Kāmikāgama’, XVIII. 19-20, enumerates 9 positions where no temples of gods should be set up: Hṛdaya the heart, the centre; Vaṃśaka, the diagonal, Sūtrabandha, a concurrence of lines, Sirā, and 6, 8 or 4 Śūlas.

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The connections of the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala and the buildings to be set up on it are manifold. They comprise the position of temples sacred to distinct divinities;⁹³ of definite buildings in definite parts of the maṇḍala and the position of the images at their definite places. In addition to these iconographic considerations, the slight deviation of doors, pillars, etc. from a uniform and mechanical symmetry contributes, as in the forms of life, towards a fuller consonance, of the proportions of the architecture. The living breath of Vāstupuruṣa would thus be seen to permeate the total structure.

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⁹³ With reference on the other hand to the Vāstumaṇḍala, as the plan of the entire site (of a village, or a town, or the king’s palace, etc.), the position in it of a temple dedicated to a special divinity remains the same in Śaiva as well as in Vaiṣṇava tradition. Comparing the situation of the temples in a Śaiva text, the ‘Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati’, Part III. ch. XXV. 64-66, and a Vaiṣṇava text, the ‘Vaikhānasāgama’, Ch. II., it is seen that a temple of Śiva (Śaṅkara) is assigned to Īśāna, the north-east, a temple of Viṣṇu or Varuṇa to the west. Other forms of divinity are allocated to their, equally corresponding plots. Buddha temples for inst. are assigned to Sugriva, south of Varuṇa, on the western side. The place of Brahmā is always in the centre, and various forms of Viṣṇu for instance, are found in various places; they may also occupy the centre (‘Vaikhānasāgama’, 1. c.) which is the place for temples of all the gods (‘Tantrasamuccaya’. See Part VII). The position of the forms of divinity, in a Vaiṣṇava temple is given most explicitly in the ‘Kāmikāgama’ and ‘Vaikhānasāgama’. See plan, Gopinatha Rao, ‘Elements of Hindu Iconography’, Pt. II. Vol. I, Appendix A.

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size, from bedsteads and conveyances upward (‘Vāstuvidyā’, I. 4-10) ; re. the various types of aṅgulas, see the ‘Kāmikāgama’, XVI. 2-9 ; I.P. III. ch. XXIV. 31. Apart from the various kinds of aṅgula, the scale of measures is further differentiated. 8 yavas make the chief or ‘best’ (jyeṣṭha) aṅgula, while the middle variety of the aṅgula has 7 yavas and the least type of aṅgula has only 6 yavas. The hasta thus is also of 3 types. They are called: Prāsaya, Sādhāraṇa and Mātrāsaya respectively (‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’, IX. 5, 10, 28-30). In this Śastra, one aṅgula is called Mātrā, 2 aṅgulas are one Kalā, 3 are one Parvan, 4 a Muṣṭi, etc., Aratni is a synonym of hasta (ib. 40-44). Vyāma or Puruṣa has 84 aṅgulas or 3½ hastas (śl. 45).

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The terminology of the parts of the Vāstumaṇḍala, is given now according to Vāstu-śāstra.

A. The lines (sūtra) of the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala.

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∗ Note the interchange of names of orthogonal and diagonal lines (Sirā or Nāḍī and Vaṃśa) in the different texts.

B. The intersections of the lines in the Vāstupuruṣamaṇḍala.

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C. Proportionate width of lines and intersections.

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While the position of the main diagonals is necessarily always one and the same, from the north-east to the south-west and from the south-east to the northwest, there are differences in the number and position of the lesser diagonals. As a rule they are drawn in the square of 81 compartments, across the third and sixth compartment on each side; altogether four lesser diagonals are thus drawn, or else in later texts (‘Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’, XI. 26-29) eight diagonals are drawn. In the 64 compartments only 4 of the lesser diagonals are drawn (‘Vāstuvidyā’, VI. 25-26).

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The ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’, LII. 61, gives the names of the divinities who occupy the squares in the border of the mandala which are connected by the diagonals. They extend from Vitatha to Śoṣa, Mukhya to Bhṛśa, Jayanta to Bhṛṅgarāja and Aditi to Sugriva (Figure on p. 32). The text does not say which of the two corners of the respective squares, on the border line, these oblique lines connect; if it is assumed that the lines are drawn from the meeting of each of the four sides with the third perpendicular on each side, including the border line, the rule holds good for the maṇḍala of 64 and of 81 squares. The ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ gives no special indications concerning the square of 64 compartments. If however, the meeting points of each fourth perpendicular line with the respective side line are the points of departure of the diagonals, the names of the divinities must be different in the maṇḍala of 64 squares. This is so in the ‘Vāstuvidyā’ where the names of the divinities are given through whose plots the lines pass from the 4th point of junction on each side. They are: Bṛhatkṣata to Varuṇa, Bhallāṭa Āditya, Indra to Yama, and Candra to Puṣpadanta.

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A widely used manual, the ‘Viśvakarmavidyāprakāśa’ (83-85) explaining the maṇḍala of 64 squares, enumerates the series of oblique lines from Vitatha to Śoṣa, etc., and supports the statement of Varāhamihira. The difference is that in the texts where the lines are to be drawn from the third point of juncture, the crossing of the diagonals is nearer to the centre than when the oblique lines are drawn from the fourth point of juncture, on each outline. The 9 specially vulnerable points (atimarma) of the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ fall into the Brahmasthāna and immediately around it.

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If the corners of the Brahmasthāna are ‘mahāmarma’ the diagonals would have to be drawn from the crossing of the 3rd perpendicular and the outline, in the square of 64 parts; and from the crossing of the 4th perpendicular and the outline in the square of 81 parts. If this is the meaning, the indications of the ‘Bṛhat Saṃhitā’ mean: In a square of 64 parts the diagonals have to be drawn from the crossing of the third line (perpendicular) with the side line. In a square of 81 parts, the diagonals have to be drawn from the crossing of the fourth perpendicular line with the side line. The names of the plots of the divinities remain the same, but the opposite corners are referred to in each case, the one nearer to the corner in the maṇḍala of 64 squares, the one away from the corner in that of 81 plots.²⁴

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²⁴ The diagonals in these 2 cases then would have to be drawn at a distance of the diagonal of one small square in the 64 plot; and of 1½ small squares in the 81 plot; JISOA, l. c., p. 184. The same points of crossing, however, are meant as starting points of the diagonals, in the two types of plans, by the ‘Vāstuvidyā’, l.c., where the 4th crossing from the corners, is the point of departure of the diagonals, in the maṇḍala of 64 and of 81 squares.

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These complexities brought about by the alternate use of the maṇḍalas of 64 and 81 squares, are increased by the reference of the Marmas to the ‘body’ of the Vāstupuruṣa. They are said to be the head, face, heart, etc. of the Vāstupuruṣa in the plan of 64 squares. The ‘Vāstu-Vidyā’ gives the names of the divinities where his head, face, etc., come to lie. This distributes the Mahāmarmas between the North-East and the Centre and not around the Centre, as the Vāstupuruṣa should lie with his head in the East in the maṇḍala of 64 squares. Yet the texts quoted put his head in the North-East, a position which the Vāstupuruṣa should occupy in a square of 81 parts. These various assimilations and combinations however are unanimous in their intention. It aims at linking up the building and the plan in which is laid out its meaning. The building draws its power from the Vāstupuruṣa who lies at its base and converts, by his name and presence the Plan of Existence (vāstumaṇḍala) into the shape of the Puruṣa, in whose likeness the temple is set up.⁹⁵

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⁹⁵ ‘Agnipurāṇa’, ch. LXI. 11, etc. ; the Prāsāda as Puruṣa ; ‘Viṣṇusaṃhitā’, XIII. 60-70 ; see also Parts V and VIII.

Linked texts (12)

Bṛhatsaṃhitā — Varāhamihira, Sanskrit
Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra — Bhoja, Sanskrit
Agnipurāṇa — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Brahmasūtra — Bādarāyaṇa, Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit
Īśānaśivagurudevapaddhati — Īśānaśivagurudeva, Sanskrit
Kāmikāgama — Sanskrit
Viṣṇusaṃhitā — Sanskrit
Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa — Sanskrit
Mahāvaṃsa — Pāli
Śilparatna — Śrīkumāra (Śilparatna) 1500, Sanskrit
Tantrasamuccaya — Chennasu Nārāyaṇa, Sanskrit