The Hindu Temple v1.c9.s9.5

v1.c9.s9.5

The Alpa or Kṣudra-vimānas, the small shrines, are described as having from one to three or four storeys (Ī.P. III. Ch. XXX. 18-21; 54-60). Their width ranges from 3 to 10 cubits (hasta). They have an inner ambulatory (madhya-nāḍikā) between double walls, or are with one set of walls only. In the latter instance the area of the Garbhagṛha has 64 squares, while the former it has 81; by the preservation of these numbers the South Indian temples prove themselves built on the Vāstu-maṇḍala. The walls are relatively much thinner than in the temples of Chart I. Instead of having a thickness of 1/4 to 1/6th of the width of the Prāsāda or of the Mūlasūtra they are assigned an eighth, ninth or tenth part only; or in a Sāndhāra shrine, the thickness of the outer wall is 1/6th of the width of the Prāsāda, that of the inner wall 1/8th of the width of the Garbhagṛha ('Śilparatna', XX, 1-3). The proportions of the plan thus form a geometrical series when there are double walls; they form no series at all in the temple without ambulatory; which judging from the proportions of its plan is an afterthought introduced for the sake of the completeness of the 'small temple'.