Divide the square site into a grid of equal squares (padas), most often 8 × 8 = 64 or 9 × 9 = 81, and place every part of the building according to the grid.
64 padas (maṇḍūka) or 81 padas (paramaśāyika)
The agrahāram: priests’ houses in a row by the temple
Line the streets nearest the temple with continuous rows of narrow, deep houses for the priests and learned families, each with a raised verandah on the street and a court within.
An agrahāram was originally land granted to Brahmins, often by royal charter, and came to mean their street: two rows of houses facing each other, sometimes with a small temple at one end. The houses share side walls; the street is the common room, where the festivals pass.
Related rules
Imagine the vāstupuruṣa lying face down on the diagram with his head in the north-east and his feet in the south-west, held down by the gods who occupy the padas; do not place walls, pillars or doors on his vital points.
Read the diagram from the centre outward: Brahmā at the heart, then a ring of the gods, a ring of human concerns, and on the outside the lesser spirits; the holiest function goes at the centre and the most worldly at the edge.
81 padas = 9 (Brahmā) + 16 + 24 + 32
Place the garbhagriha (the small dark chamber that houses the image) over the Brahmasthana, with its walls on the ring of the gods and its door on the axis, usually to the east.
Provide a path for circumambulation (pradakshina) in the clockwise direction, keeping the sacred object on the right, and enclose it with a railing that separates the sacred ground.
Break each face of the square sanctum into projections (rathas), three, five, seven or more, that step forward towards the central one, and carry them up unbroken through the wall and the tower.
tri-ratha 3 · pancha-ratha 5 · sapta-ratha 7 projections per face
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The agrahāram: priests’ houses in a row by the temple”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/agraharam-street. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.