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 city as the temple’s outer enclosure
Lay out the streets of a temple town in concentric squares round the temple, parallel to its walls, with the main streets on the axes of its gateways, so that the processions of the god circle the whole city.
At Srirangam the seven enclosures round the shrine of Ranganatha are the town: the inner four are temple, the outer three hold streets of houses and shops within their walls. At Madurai the squares are streets named for the months of the festivals that pass along them (Adi, Chithirai, Avani-moola, Masi), and the king’s palace stands outside them. The circumambulation (pradakṣiṇa) of the sanctum is enlarged to the scale of the city.
Local tradition holds that Madurai was first laid out in the form of a lotus round the temple; the present squares are the work of the Nayaka kings from the sixteenth century.
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 city as the temple’s outer enclosure”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/temple-town-concentric. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.