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.
Each varṇa in its own quarter
Settle the four varṇas in four quarters of the town: Brahmins to the north, Kṣatriyas to the east, Vaiśyas to the south and Śūdras to the west.
The Arthaśāstra’s royal city is a machine for order: the palace north of the centre, the treasury, the workshops and the markets each in a named sector, the crafts grouped by trade, and the four varṇas each in its quarter. The village texts carry the same idea into the planning of villages. It describes an ideal social order as much as any real town.
Related rules
Build the stupa as a solid hemispherical mound (anda) over relics, on a circular terrace (medhi), and crown it with a railed enclosure (harmika) and a mast of parasols (chattra).
Sanchi: Ø ≈ 36.6 m, height ≈ 16.5 m (without the crown)
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.
Lay the halls along the east–west axis in front of the sanctum (porch, hall, great hall, vestibule), each larger and more lofty than the one before, so that the roofs rise in a continuous range to the shikhara.
Place the monastery where it is neither too far from the town nor too near: easy to come and go for all who wish to visit, not crowded by day, quiet at night, apart from the noise of people, fit for seclusion.
Give the monks dwellings of cells round a court with a verandah, a single gateway, and a wall round the whole; add halls for assembly and worship, wells and a bath-house, as they are needed.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “Each varṇa in its own quarter”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/arthashastra-varna-quarters. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.