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)
Rules · Plans · Cities · Doors & windows
Enclosures and their gateways
Surround the sanctum with up to five walled enclosures (prākāra), each with gateways on the axes, and name and size the gateways by their enclosure, from the innermost dvāraśobhā to the outermost mahāgopura.
The South Indian texts give the gateways of the successive enclosures five names (dvāraśobhā, dvāraśālā, dvāraprāsāda, dvāraharmya and mahāgopura) and proportion each to its wall. The inner enclosures hold the attendant shrines, halls and tank; the outer ones became streets and bazaars.
In practice the outer gateways, built later by kings adding enclosures round an old shrine, grew far taller than the sanctum they led to: the Nayaka gopuras of Madurai rise to about fifty metres over a vimāna of three storeys.
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, “Enclosures and their gateways”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/mayamata-five-gateways. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.