The Hindu Temple v1.c5.s7.9

v1.c5.s7.9

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