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 village auspicious on every side
Make the sarvatobhadra village square, walled, with a gate in the middle of each side; run the main streets from gate to gate to cross at the centre, and put the temple there, with streets round it and round the inside of the wall.
The name means “auspicious on all sides”: the plan has no back. Laid on the 81-square diagram, its temple occupies the central squares of Brahmā, and ring streets follow the boundaries between the zones of the gods, of men and of the spirits. The texts recommend it for large villages and for places where all classes live together.
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 village auspicious on every side”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/sarvatobhadra-village. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.