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)
Eight plans for a village
Choose the plan of a village from eight types named for their figures (daṇḍaka, sarvatobhadra, nandyāvarta, padmaka, svastika, prastara, kārmuka and caturmukha), according to its size, its site and who is to live in it.
The Mānasāra, like the Mayamata, lays out villages on the same squared diagrams as temples, and names its plans after figures: the staff (a long street), the auspicious-on-all-sides square, the lotus with its streets like petals, the svastika, the bow for a site along a river bend, and so on. Each type prescribes its streets, its gates and the placing of its temple.
The descriptions are brief and have been reconstructed differently by modern scholars, beginning with P. K. Acharya in the 1920s; how far real villages followed them is debated.
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, “Eight plans for a village”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/manasara-village-types. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.