On the Idea of the Mandala as a Governing Device in Indian Architectural Tradition SONIT BAFNA

8/13/2019 On the Idea of the Mandala as a Governing Device in Indian Architectural Tradition SONIT BAFNA

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On the Idea of the Mandala as a Governing Device in Indian Architectural TraditionAuthor(s): Sonit BafnaSource: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 26-49Published by: Society of Architectural HistoriansStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/991561Accessed: 19/04/2010 00:35

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n t h e d e a o f t h e anda la

s overning e v i c e

in I n d i a n rchitectural Tradi t ion

SONIT BAFNAGeorgia Institute of Technology

he notion that magical diagrams called mandalas(Figure 1)underlie most traditional Hindu archi-tectural production has become well entrenched

within current thought. What it means to have a mandalaunderlie a building or city, however, s not always clear. Forseveral writers, the role of these diagrams, especially theVastupurusaman.dala rawn as a square grid, is to act as a

planning guide: streets in a town, the walls of a building,and functional zones within built structures are, accordingto this view, laid out upon the grid lines of a mandala. As aconsequence of this notion, any existing historical tructureof Hindu patronage hat bears signs of an orthogonal grid,or even exhibits a square profile, is interpreted as havingbeen designed upon the Vdstupurusaman.dala But scholarswho try to probe further, to determine how and to whatextent such structures ould have been generated using themandala, nvariably un into difficulties.2Although a greatdeal has been written on the topic, very few scholars have

attemptedo describe

he precise manner n which the man-dala could have acted as a generative diagram.This paper s born partly out of curiosity egarding he

role of this enigmatic device,and partly out a sense of frustra-tion with the uncriticalmanner n which his topic spopularlydiscussed.Few realize hat the idea of the mandala s a gov-erning diagram ained currency nly toward he mid twenti-eth century. t was during his time that the study of Indianarchitecture lso began to rely increasingly pon traditionalIndian sources or classification nd interpretation f docu-

mented buildings.Both these rends, he idea of the governingmandala nd the study of Indian architecture rom an indige-nous perspective, an be directly related o the developmentof systematic tudies of traditional iterature n architecturetypically classed under the rubric vastusastra r silpasastra.3 t isfrom this literature hat most, if not all, of the evidence up-porting he idea of the generative mandala s drawn.

Sources of Evidence: The Vastuisstra Literature

Traditional writings on vastusastra are scattered within anextremely diverse body of literature, ranging from generalencyclopedic works to technical manuals meant for profes-sional artisans ndsthapatis asthapati s the person n chargeof an architectural roject).4Examples of the technical rea-tises include texts like Mdnasara, Mayamatam, and Apardji-taprchha, which contain material dealing exclusively withvastusastra. The authorship of these texts is difficult to

establish, since they were at times credited to legendarysages n order to lend authenticity and weight to their opin-ions, and at other times, to the patrons who commissionedthem. Samaranganasutradhara, for instance, is credited toBhoja, and Mdnasolldsa o Someshvara. A few later produc-tions such as Silpasarini, Silpaprakdsra, and Rupa Mandanawere written largely by sthapatis hemselves and describedexisting tradecraft including contemporary constructionalpractices and stylistic trends. Much useful material on vas-tusastra is also found in more the general class of Sanskrit


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literature. Some of the Puranas are rich sources of materialon artistic traditions, notably the Matsyapurana chapters252-270 on making of images and buildings), the Agnipu-radna chapters 21-106, 263-272, and 317-326 on variousaspects of vastsastra), and the Visnudharmottarapura.na.Agamic iterature rom southern India, ncluding exts suchas Kamikagama, ancaratra, nd Purvakagamika, lso fea-ture material on vastu and related topics.5 To add to these,texts ostensibly composed on completely different subjects,such as the Arthasastra, tract on politics and statecraft, ndthe Brhatsamhita, treatise on astrology and augury, con-tain valuable material on architecture and related topics.

These writings were invariably composed within thecontext of established regional traditions of building andstrongly reflect this, not just in their content and use oftechnical terminology, but in their language as well, withseveral exts being composed n regional anguages. A num-ber of texts including the Silpasarini, ilpaprakadLa,nd Sil-paratnavali llustrate the regional style of Orissan emples.Both Mayamatam nd Manasara re related o the southern

Figure 1 Kramrisch's escription ofthe generic Vastupurusamandala. heallocation of deities to the individual

squares varies from one depiction to

another, but a four-level hierarchy, ndi-cated here by the four tones, is con-

sistently maintained.

IKSA

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Indian tradition, as is most of Agamic literature on thetopic.6 Comparable exts from the north and central Indiainclude Samaranga:n sutradhara, Rdjavallabha, and Aparaji-taprchha. Manusyalaya Candrika and Silparatnam belong tothe distinctive woodworking tradition of Kerala, while theCitralaksana of Naganjit is a Tibetan text.

Not only does the quality of material in all these texts

vary tremendously, but it can also be a very difficult task todate many of them. The problem of dating is worsened bythe fact that several manuscripts have been found in a frag-mented state. Dating by writing style or by content is difficultbecause authors have not been averse to incorporating mate-

rial from older texts into their own, resulting in numeroustexts that carry identical passages without leaving a clue as towhich could have been the original. Typically, texts were pre-served through regularly made copies (the original being rit-

ually destroyed), which the copyists felt free to amend as theysaw fit. To add to this, there was a general tendency within theauthors of these texts (and compilations) to claim that their

writings originated in Vedic literature.7

ON THE IDEA OF THE MANDALA AS A GOVERNING DEVICE 27

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As a result, ew texts have been securely dated. The old-est writings on vastusastra are perhaps those from thePuranas; he sections on vdstu n Matsyapurdna re believed,presently, o date from A.D. 550-650, with some more beingadded as late as A.D. 1000. Those in Agnipurdna date to theninth century.8 The oldest references to architecture andplanning are actually from the Arthasastra, raditionally

attributed o Kautilya; however, he discussions n this textare related more to issues of social organization and mattersof policy, rather han on vtstusdstra er se.9Brhatsamhitd sanother early text that can be dated with some confidenceto the sixth century A.D.10The majority of the existing ech-nical manuals were composed later, after the tenth century.Samardaganasutradhara s dated to eleventh century. 1Mayamatam ears unmistakable igns of having been com-posed during the reign of the Cholas and therefore mustdate no earlier han the tenth century, perhaps even later.12Most of the texts in the regional vernacular, f datable, haveproved to be later than the thirteenth or fourteenth cen-tury. Agamic exts have been even more intransigent o dat-ing, although t is unlikely that they were composed earlierthan the sixth century.13

The Padavinyas Schemes

References o the mandala diagrams, within vastusastric it-erature, are scattered, ragmentary, nd generally obscure.So much so that they seem to have escaped he attention ofthe earliest cholars who investigated his literature. n RamRaz's 1834 publication, Essayon the Architectureof the Hin-

doos, he first attempt to translate vastusistra exts for thebenefit of a modern, non-Brahmin, and nonprofessionalaudience, there is scarcely a mention of the mandala. Eventhe Dictionary f Hindu Architecture, dited by P. K. Acharyain 1927 and intended to be a comprehesive ist of the tech-nical terms associated with traditional iterature on archi-tecture, contains no entries either for "mandala" or"vastumandala." he idea that site plans of towns and vil-lages in India were traditionally based upon "mystical" ia-grams seems to have been introduced around the turn ofthe century by European artists and scholars who wereinterested in promoting traditional artistic traditions inIndia. The writings of E. B. Havell, the influential principalof the Calcutta College of Art, contain passing references omystical diagrams upon which town and village plans werebased.14But it is Acharya who may well be responsible forgiving a more concrete basis to these ideas. In TheArchitec-ture oftheManasdra, book credited as being the first trans-lation of a complete vastusadstra ext, Acharya makes anexplicit connection between the diagrams nd town plans.s1

The connection s made within the translation f chap-ter 7, a chapter hat provides a descriptive ist of square gridsused in conjunction with vastupujan, he propitiatory itualperformed on the site prior to building.16 The list beginswith a single square named pecaka) nd continues througha sequence of square grids, increasing gnomonically o thelargest one (called sakala), which has 32 squares to a side.

Most of the text in this chapter s given over to a descriptionof the order n which a given set of deities is to be arrangedwithin each of the diagrams, and the offerings needed to bemade to each god or demigod. The individual quare or cellformed from the subdivision is referred to as a pada, andchapter 7 of the Mdnasara s titled "Padavinyasah"-a om-pound of pada and vinyas Skt., arrangement, or distribu-tion).'7 Oddly enough, in The Architecture fthe Mdnasara,Acharya endered his title simply as "Ground-plans."'8 isreasons or doing so lie embedded within various tatementsthroughout the text.

Each of these square schemes is associated with a par-ticular building type. Within the chapter that describesthese diagrams here is no explanation of what this associa-tion implies; but, scattered within the text are commentsand njunctions uggesting hat the diagrams may be used inlaying out residential plots, temple complexes, and evenentire towns and villages. Chapter 36 of the Mdnasara "Onthe situation and measurement of dwelling houses"), forinstance, discusses the types of grids deemed appropriatefor each of the castes, and also prescribes he layouts of thevarious functional areas of a house in accordance with thedeities presiding within each cell of the grid. Similarly, n

chapter 9, verses 166-182 mention some of these grids-the sthan.dila 49 squares), heparamasayika 81 squares), ndthe man.duka 64 squares)-as being appropriate or partic-ular villages depending on their dimensions.

Similar statements can be found in the Mayamatam,text from the same building tradition, and one whichAcharya drew upon extensively o supplement his reading ofthe Mdnasara.19 or instance, while discussing he layout oftemple complexes,Mayamatam pecifies hat "[The diagramfor] the main temple is drawn up with four squares: hat forthe first enclosure is the mahdpitha onsisting of sixteen

squares,that for the second is maznduka

64 squares),hat

for the median enclosure, he bhadramahasana 136 squares)and that for the fifth the indrakdnta 1024 squares)."20

These instructions, however, are characteristicallyschematic and generic; here is little indication within thesetexts on precisely how these grids are to be used for deter-mining architectural orms. The closest, perhaps, hat theMayamatam omes to specifying an operational nstructionis in the following statement referring o town layouts:

28 JSAH / 59:1, MARCH 2000


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There are two sorts of diagrams ertaining o the settingup of allconstructions: hose consisting of an even number fsquares and those where the number s odd. Ifthe number seven, the streets should be drawn along the lines of the dia-gram and, if odd, they should go through the middle ofsquares.21

This seems clear enough, but when the texts are con-sulted for actual specifications of town, house, or templeplans, there appears to be little correlation with theseinstructions. Neither the actual dimensions of the townsand villages, nor the number of streets or blocks that are

prescribed or most town-planning chemes, correspond othe number of square partitions of the diagrams normallyprescribed. n fact, most of the suggested plans for both vil-

lages and towns are rectangular nd, hence, contain differ-ent numbers of streets in each direction.22More than that,there is a direct injunction that forbids the planner from

constructing upon the lines of diagrams:"Diagrams uch as pecaka with four squares) or asana

(with a hundred squares) or those between them should beused; the sage must avoid (building) on their ines and otherforbidden places."23

These "lines [sutrani] and other forbidden places[visamsthanani]" actually refer to another symbolic con-struction associated with these diagrams-that of the Vas-tupurusa the spirit of the site).

The Vastupurusa s described as being crooked, hump-backed, and lying face down with his body contorted intothe shape of a square.24 ccording to these texts, the bodyof the Vastupurusa an be overlaid on-or more properly,assigned to-the padavinyds cheme. Typically, he is fittedin diagonally, with his head in the northeast corner of thediagram, his feet in the southwest corner, and his elbowsand knees in the remaining northwest and southeast cor-ners (Figure 2). The deities assigned o the differentpads fthe grid can therefore be seen as occupying different partsof his body. The association f the Vastupurusa ith the Vas-tuman.dala s clarified n a legend repeated n several majorSanskrit exts.

The Agnipurana, for example, describes an evil

demigod (bhuta) orn during Siva'sfight with the Asur And-haka. This bhuta is described s possessing a terrifying oun-tenance and an insatiable hunger. The legend goes thathaving done a great penance, the bhzta won a boon fromSiva that allowed him to swallow he three worlds that con-stitute the Hindu cosmos. As this being stretched himselfand began to occupy the heavens, he fell flat on the earth.The various gods and demigods seized this opportunity andpinned various parts of his body to the ground, rendering

Figure 2 The Vastupurusamandala ith the Vastupurusa aid outwithin. Note that the location of deities follows the body of the

Vastupurusa, ot the squares of grid; his is a characteristic eature inthe depiction of the Vastupurusamandala.

him helpless. This being came to be called Vdstu or Vas-tupurusa) ecause he gods and demigods managed o lodgethemselves on his body.25Legends hold that the deities, in

pinning him down, occupied different parts of his body andcontinued to reside there.26 n order to satisfy his hunger,Brahma ordained hat he receive offerings from people onbuilding sites before construction; hence, the ritual propi-tiation ceremony.

The body of the Vastupurusa, s it lies contorted withinthe square grid, is supposed to be sensitive at a number ofpoints called marmas. The well-being of the Vastupurusa,according o the vastusdstra texts, assures he well-being ofthe building and, by implication, ts owner. An importantcriterion for any building, therefore, is to avoid injury to

the marmas located on the body of the Vastupurusa. oensure that this is achieved, texts prohibit any direct con-struction upon the marmas hemselves.27Although he mar-mas are specifically said to lie at the intersection of majordiagonals, seen as the veins (siras or nddis) of the purusa, tis common for vastusastric exts to prohibit constructionupon other lines of the padavinyas iagrams as well.

Despite the contradictions and the irregularity ofexplanations, t seemed logical for Acharya and his con-



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temporaries to envision these square grids as instrumentsfor the laying out of plans of towns, villages, and temples.In TownPlanning n Ancient ndia, B. B. Dutt agreed withthe idea that plan layouts of towns and villages were basedupon the padavinyas chemes.28He seems to have been thefirst to draw an explicit connection between the padavinyasgrids and the division of a village plan into plots in which

the roads would correspond to the lines of the ritual dia-gram. It is interesting to note, though, that the diagramaccording to him was a basis, not so much of formal plan-ning, but of what he calls "folk-planning"-the assigningof particular classes of people to particular ections of thevillage.29

The idea that the thirty-two padavinyas chemes actu-

ally guided most traditional planning became commonlyaccepted by the 1930s.Though some doubts still remained,especially with regard to matters such as the design ofnonorthogonal schemes, problems such as the lack of exist-ing examples hat corresponded o these schemes, and theapparent ontradictions within the prescriptions f the textsthemselves, were attributed o the fragmentary nd incom-plete nature of the textual evidence. It was common forscholars to complement what they felt was informationmissing in one silpas'stra ext with passages taken fromanother; Acharya onsistently supplemented his translationof the Manasara with material from the Samaradga.nasu-tradhara, the Sukranitisara, and agamas like the Isanasi-

vagurudevapaddhati.30 n any case, the padavinyas scheme was

alwaysuncomfortably lacedwithin the context of the tech-nical literature of the vdstu manuals. In these manuals, he

series of these diagrams s introduced abruptly, without anyexplanation egarding ts nature and role. While the legendof the Vdstupurusa elps us understand the relationshipbetween the group of deities and the Vastupurusa, he squarediagrammatic evice s itself not adequately xplained. Thedeities themselves are also something of a mystery-theyare not the common deities of the classical Hinduism thathad been prevalent ince the middle of the last millennium.It was generally believed that the symbolism of thesepadavinyas chemes was related to ancient Vedic thought,but most authors were content to leave it at that. It was leftto Stella

Kramrisch,n the late

forties,to

laythe

ground-work for such a connection.

Kramrisch and the Ja,stupurusamandalaOver time, Kramrisch's monumental publication, simplytitled The Hindu Temple, as reached the status of a defini-tive work, and t is not difficult o see why. Collecting mate-rial from a vast range of sources, he assembled he scattered

and obscure architectural hought of the subcontinent ntoa single conception whose roots could be traced back o theVedic period. She connected the concept of the Vdstupurusato that of Purusa the Supernal Man, according to Kram-risch) of the Brahmanical iterature, and linked t further othe creation egend of Prajapati the demiurge).31 n a sim-ilar vein, she located the source of the square padavinyas

schemes in the Vedic altars that were ritually constructedby piling up bricks nto strictly prescribed hapes, ncludingthe square. In addition to the already accepted symbolicnotion of the square as the shape of the inhabited earth, hesquare grid was given a cosmological as well as a ritualisticsignificance. Based on these ideas, Kramrisch literallyreconstructed he generic Hindu temple, step by step, fromits conceptual roots to its planning, siting, foundation, base,superstructure, nd the overlay of the iconographical atina.For her, all Indian temples-whatever their morphologicalor stylistic difference-were essentially imilar. Their formshad all originated n the Vedic altar, as well as in the sacredenclosure marked off by a railing (vedikd), urmounted by asacrificial post (yupa), nd gradually laborated o embodyan additional dual metaphor of the mountain and the cave.

Within this unified idea of building construction, hesquare padavinyas rids were given meaning as the Vas-tupurusamandala-the mandala associated with vastu.Acharya and other writers had so far nterpreted hese gridsrather pragmatically splanning chemes guiding he layoutof complexes and towns. Kramrisch endowed these dia-grams with far more significance than that. In her ownwords, "The Vastupurusa mandala s the magic diagram(yantra) and the form (rupa) of the Vastupurusa. t is hisbody (sarira) and a bodily device (sarira yantra) by whichthose who have the requisite knowledge attain the bestresults n temple building. It is laid out in tabular notationas man and site."32

The Vedic tradition, according o Kramrisch, onceivesof the form of earth as a circle. However, once it is givenorientation and made inhabitable, he earth s seen as vastuand is visualized as a square ixed with respect to the cardi-nal directions. The Vastupurusamandala, hich is the sym-bolic representation of vastu, is therefore drawn up as a

square.33he

forty-fivedeities

mentioned n the padavinyasschemes are arranged n three sets of concentric rings. Atthe center is the Brahman, the supreme principle. Sur-rounding his are the twelve major deities. In the final layer,distributed along the periphery, are the thirty-two padade-vatds (the minor deities, so called because each is assignedto a pada).

Brahma, he "regent of the place" n Kramrisch's nter-pretation, occupies the central region. The twelve deities

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surrounding him are identified as the twelve Adityas-theregents of the twelve different "aspects" f the sun.34Theseare arranged n a dual sequence. The four sides, beginningfrom the east and moving toward he south, are assigned oAryaman, Vivasvan, Mitra, and Mahidhara n that order.The remaining eight Adityas are arranged n pairs at thefour corners: Savitr and Savitra at the southeast corner,

Indra and Indrajaya n the southwest, Apa and Apavatsa nthe northeast, and Rudra and Rudrajaya n the northwest.The thirty-two padadevatas re grouped nto four sets, eachassociated with a particular direction and led by a dikpala,the warder of spatial directions. Mahendra, or Agni, is asso-ciated with the east, Yama with the south, Varuna with thewest, and Soma with the north. Each of these directions hasa special signification: he east is the quarter of the gods;the south is the region of ancestors; he west is the area ofdarkness the inverse of the brilliant Agni in the east); andthe north is the region of men. But more than this, the

peripheral deities actually trace a circumferential patharound he mandala, beginning with Agni in the northeast.In addition o these forty-five deities, eight other "homelesspresences" are sometimes indicated on the diagram of the

Vastupurusaman.dala; hese are, however, alwaysplaced out-side the square boundary of the mandala and not allocatedto particular quares.

It is noteworthy that in her detailed discussion of theentire scheme, Kramrisch does not explain the particularsymbolism, or role, associated with each deity. She limitssuch explanation o broad groups-the Adityas, he lokpalas,or the leading padadevatas f each direction. This is not an

oversight on her part; his would, in any case, have been dif-ficult for the simple reason that the particular cheme offorty-five deities associated with the Vastupurusamandala sfound nowhere else within Sanskrit iterature. For one, it isnot a Vedic arrangement. The Vedic literature commonlyspeaks of thirty-three devatas and, at times, of six, three,two, one and a half, and even one), but none of these setscorresponds accurately with that of the Vastupurusaman-dala.35 Perhaps the most intriguing fact is that the wordBrahma tself does not appear n the Vedas, Upanishads, orBrahmanas.36 Although the conception of Brahma is

believed to originate in the Vedic notion of the Prajapati,this does cast doubt on the antiquity of the scheme of deitiesassembled upon the Vastupurusaman.dala. ut, if this partic-ular set of deities is not Vedic in its origins, neither does itappear o be strictly Pauranic. Not only are typically Pau-ranic deities, including Siva and Visnu, conspicuouslyabsent in the Vastupurusaman.dala, several of its minorpadadevatas re not recognized as deities or gods within gen-eral Sanskrit iterature.37

The broad organizational cheme of the Vastupurusaman-dala the nner circleof twelveAdityas urrounded ya ring ofpadadevatas hat are arranged n four cardinally orientedgroups), owever, oes follow a well-established raditionwithancient origins. This arrangement as strong astronomicalassociations: he twelve Adityas are associated with the solarmonths, and not only are eight of the padadevatas ecognized

as dikpalas the Wardens of the Directions), but there havebeen attempts to correlate the remaining twenty-eight ofthem with the twenty-seven naksatras the constellations hatlie on the Vedic zodiac).38 t least on broad principles, here-fore, Kramrisch's cheme can be situated within the generictradition of Hindu thought.

The value of Kramrisch's work essentially ies in giv-ing a unified, if not wholly coherent, meaning to what wasearlier een as esoteric, and even irrelevant, ymbolism. Themysterious deities of the padavinyas chemes were now seenas significant elements of a Vedic cosmological concep-tion-not arbitrarily

ssignedto various padas, but follow-

ing a systematic order. Following Kramrisch it becamecommon to refer to the padavinyas grids as the Vas-tupurusamandala. he connection itself was not unprece-dented; many of the Agamic exts had traditionally eferredto these diagrams as Vastupurusamandalas.39 he crucialstep that Kramrisch ook was in recognizing the powerfuland far-reaching mplications of the mandala sa generativeidea. What were once seen simply as superficially ymbolic,but essentially practical, chemes to be used for ritual pur-poses and, to an extent, for guiding the layouts of complexesand settlements, were now understood as generative devices

that carried a profound symbolic conception of the very actof building. As Kramrisch herself put it:

The Vastupurusamandala s the plan of all architectural orm ofthe Hindus. The site-plan, the ground-plan, he horizontal andvertical ections are regulated by its norm. Originally nd in prac-tice the site-plan is laid out according to the Vastupu-rusamandala; nd the "general orm of the temple" . . . given inearlier exts, rests on the Vastupurusamandala.40

It is this idea that seems to have taken a firm root

within our current understanding of Indian architecture.Mandalas were known to be esoteric, mystical drawingsproduced by Tantrics-followers of a religious traditionknown for its secretive tendencies and unconventional rit-ualistic practices. But what connection could be positedwithin diagrams associated with a marginal religious cultand those associated with a practical profession? In orderto answer his question, we must examine the general deaof the mandala within its Tantric context.



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Tantric Mandala: The Meditational Device

The Sanskrit erm mandala as traditionally een related othe Tantric elements of both the Hindu and Buddhist reli-gious traditions. Tantricism s an esoteric devotional radi-tion whose elements pervade all the major Indianreligions-Hindiusm, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is gener-ally dentified by its focus on specific practices hat will lead

the devotee to the path of salvation. All these practicesessentially nvolved highly ritualized operations whose pur-pose is to move the practitioner oward a state of trance.Apart from ritualized procedures of recitation of syllables(mantra), making of appropriate estures mudra), nd med-itating upon concrete manifestation of deities (dhyana),these practices also include the construction of elaboratediagrams-the name mandala being applied both to thepractice as well as the diagrams hemselves.41 ince ArthurAvalon's renowned translations of Tantric texts, severalscholars have written illuminatingly on the practice of themandala; one of the most thorough of these treatments sundoubtedly due to Giuseppe Tucci.42His description ofthe mandalas and of the meditational practice associatedwith them, although written from the perspective of aninsider with a strong empathy for the subject, s analyticalenough to provide a useful insight into the nature of theseenigmatic diagrams.

To the outsider, here appears o be a bewildering vari-ety of mandalas. They vary, not just in their forms, but alsoin the variety of media that they are drawn n; some man-dalas are temporarily rawn n colored chalk upon a flat sur-face, while others are permanently etched upon metal

plates. In addition, while some mandalas are drawn as sim-ple configurations f geometrical igures, others, such as theBuddhist tankas, are drawn as dazzling colored landscapespainted in psychedelic colors upon cloth. According toTucci, all the mandalas, whatever their overt appearance,are constructed upon a common underlying structuralframework.

This structural ramework onsists of one or more con-centric circles, arranged within an orthogonal enclosure.Inscribed within the innermost of these rings is a squarewith a characteristically nflected boundary. The square straversed by diagonal ines, which divide t into four trian-gles. Five small circles, one placed at the center and oneinside each of the triangles, carry within them emblems orfigures of divinities. The intermediate spaces are also dec-orated with additional figures of deities and evocative and-scapes. Within this framework, he complex and strictlyprescribed symbolic scheme of the particular mandalaunfolds. A brief description of the mandala of the rDor-jeac'an the Holder of the Diamond) from the Tibetan Bud-

Figure 3 The mandala of the rDorjeac'an

dhist tradition llustrates ne such scheme (Figure 3).43Theoutermost circle, which displays an uninterrupted ine ofscrollwork, epresents nosis-the fire of consciousness hatdestroys gnorance. Just to the inside of it is the "girdle ofdiamonds." he diamond, or vajra rDorje n Tibetan), eter-nal and unchanging, ymbolizes he "Supreme Cognition,"that is, illumination, which once attained s never lost. Theentire girdle of diamonds s the boundary hat the Tantricworshipper must cross in order to return to the phase ofreintegration with the supreme soul. A ring of lotus leavesis placed nside this to indicate the worshipper's ccessibil-

ityto the secret. Within this lies a

five-layered quare,he

most secret and essential part of the mandala. The diagonallines that traverse his square orm two opposed triangles,one pointing downward and the other upward. This set oftriangles, identified as the "Wellspring of the Law"(dharma), ndicates the two-stage ritual of meditation thatthe worshipper follows; the downward-pointing rianglesymbolizes the first phase of expansion from One to All,while the inverted triangle ndicates he phase of return or

32 JSAH / 59:1, MARCH 2000


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reintegration. Right at the center of the entire scheme isthe diamond seat of the Buddha, he Supreme Conscious-ness. The five-layered square actually forms a boundarybetween two distinct areas of the mandala-the inner one,mystical and representative of the esoteric universe of

"being," nd the outer one, representing he physical world,the world of "becoming." As a consequence of the inter-

mediate space between two,the five concentric

squareboundaries re shown nhabited by adoring deities that sym-bolize "the ight imprisoned n the psyche, and which awak-ens the primordial consciousness." The square boundariesthemselves are not continuous, but broached n the middleof the sides (coincident with the cardinal directions) by fourentrances, and modeled on the entrance structures of royalpalaces. Between the square and the outer rings are placedvarious ornaments, uch as umbrellas, vases, and standards.These symbolize he instruments of the ritual and offeringsthat honor sacred places, divine surfaces, and the territoryof the king.

Despite its detailed symbolic scheme, the mandala snot, strictly speaking, an iconic object; rather, t can be seenas an organized scheme of representation that has to be"read" n a particular manner. The intention behind theexercise of reading is to achieve an altered state of con-sciousness, or, in Tucci's words, to "move rom the plane ofsamsara the illusory world of reality) to that of nirvana."44This is an understandably ifficultexercise, calling or much

practice and concentration. The mandala s an instrumentor aid that helps the worshipper, particularly a neophyte,achieve this in a gradual, tep-by-step, manner. Each stage

is symbolized by images of particular deities or attributesthat the worshipper must mentally reintegrate nto a singleidea. The end stage is when the meditator s able to reach astate of complete identification with the Supreme Con-sciousness, the Buddha.

The nature of imagery and symbolism may vary withinthe different Tantric traditions. In the Saiva schools ofTantricism, or instance, mandalas re constructed with sim-ple linear figures-triangles, squares, circles, and so on.Combined into complex arrangements, these diagrams,called yantras, may be drawn on paper or carved uponmetallic medallions.

However,the

underlyingconstruction

of these diagrams s essentially imilar o the pictorial Bud-dhist mandalas. One of the better known of these yantras,the Sriyantra Figure 4), is drawn as series of overlappingtriangles-four pointing upward and five downward-placed sequentially within two petalled enclosures, threecircular ones, and three squares with the characteristic hiv-ered (sisirita) profile.45During dhyana meditation), how-ever, what appears as the set of overlapping triangles is

ul

a

Figure 4 The Sriyantra

actually read as a concentric series of star-shaped polygons.The innermost is a three-pointed figure, the next eight-pointed, followed by two ten-pointed stars, and finally by a

fourteen-pointed one. The symbolism here is completelydifferent rom that of the Tibetan mandala described arlier.Each of these figures is associated with a set of attributesthat go into making a complete description of Sri, the deity

of the yantra.The generic mandala, hen, can be described as having

a concentric arrangement of geometrical figures, eitherelaborated pictorially or simply depicted as linear diagrams.A radial hierarchy dominated by the center governs thearrangement. Enclosed within a square outline, the diagramfunctions more or less like a mnemonic device, allowing heworshipper to focus his concentration gradually andachieve, step by step, the meditational rance hat s the ulti-mate goal of the practice. It is here that the descriptioncoincides with that of the Vdstupurusaman.dala, whose

orthogonal grids appear,at

first,to be

completelyremoved

from the Tantric diagrams. It, too, features a group ofdeities arranged n rings around a dominant center with aradial hierarchy, with the entire arrangement beingenclosed within a square. Although drawn as a grid, the Vas-tupurusamandala s actually read as a concentric series ofsquare shapes, n line with the generic idea of the mandala.Still, its symbolic scheme is completely different, and therewould, at first glance, seem to be nothing more than a struc-


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tural ink between the Vastupurusaman.dala nd the Tantricyantras or mandalas.

A set of ancient drawings rom Orissa brought to theattention of modern scholarship n the middle of this cen-tury, however, pointed to the possibility of a direct connec-tion-not only of the Vdstupurusaman.dalapecifically, ut ofthe generic idea of the mandala tself-with architecture.

Drawings in the Orissan Manuscripts and theArchitectural Role of the Mandala

These drawings come from texts that were discovered byPandit SadashivRath Sharma during a survey of some Oris-san villages with Atharvavedic antecedents.46 Out of 974unearthed palm-leaf manuscripts, even were found to dealwith the subject of the Konark emple, four of which con-tained factual contemporary descriptions of different sub-jects related to the temple. The first of these texts is adetailed architectural urvey of the Padmakesara eula ( themain temple) and its surrounding shrines. The originaldates from the seventeenth century, hough the manuscriptat hand represents copies made by those of successive gen-erations. The bulk of the contents of this text consists ofactual measured drawings f the temples, and ncludes com-plete plans and elevations, as well as constructional details.The drawings are accompanied by explanations, captions,and an extensive commentary hat enumerates all architec-tural details along their measurements. The second, shortermanuscript, known as the Trikala Mahamaya Arcana Vidhi,describes the rituals for the worship of Mahamaya. The

third manuscript, Baya Cakda, s the longest as well as theoldest, dating from the thirteenth century. It provides achronological account of the construction and the expen-diture of the building operations of the Padmakesara em-ple. Although the text does not explicitly describe he formof the temple, it remains a valuable source for understand-ing the organization of building operations during thisperiod. The fourth document, a type of priestly manual,describes rituals of worship, but refrains rom commentingdirectly on the architecture or the buildings themselves.

Drawings within the first manuscript are of particularinterest in that

theyare a rare

surviving exampleof tradi-

tional measured drawings of a known, existing monument.Specifically pertinent here are the plan drawings of thesemonuments. Each plan has embedded within it a smallyantra. n the plan of the Padmakesara eula (Figure 5), forinstance, a smaller diagram s placed within the sanctum(garbha rha) and identified as Bhdskarabhadra antra; heone embedded nside the plan of the mukhasala s captionedSuryapancabja andala; nd the one associated with the nat-

mandapa s the nine-squared Grhabja Mandala. The con-struction and use of these diagrams s described n detail ntwo Tantric texts from the same region-Silpasarini andSaudhikagama.

While these drawings of the yantras within templeplans helped promote the idea that the concept of mandalaat large had an architectural imension, t did not leave the

matter ully resolved. What exactlywas the role of the man-dala within architecture? One interesting direction, whichmay have suggested itself to mid-twentieth-century chol-ars of Indian architecture, could have come from discus-sions on the design methods of the Gothic master masonsamong contemporary medievalist art historians. In 1945,Paul Frankl wrote an influential essay on the technical craftsecret preserved by the medieval lodges.47 n this he dis-cussed the 1487 publication of a booklet on the design ofsteeples and pinnacles by Mathes Roriczer (the mastermason associated with Regensburg Cathedral), which wassupposed o have revealed he "secret of the master masons"to the world at large.48According to Frankl, he secret wasessentially he knowledge of constructional geometry and,in particular, he knowledge of "how to take the elevationfrom a plan," an example of which is given in Roriczer'sbooklet (Figure 6).49

The similarity f this diagram with the yantras embed-ded within the Orissan plans s uncanny, nd t does not seemtoo far-fetched o suppose hat such examplesmay have con-tributed o the assumption f a geometrical ole for the Vds-tuman.dala s well.50In any case, an association with themandala-and by implication, with Tantricism-was to give

the padavinyds iagrams n esoteric and magical dimension.Tantricism had alwaysbeen known for its secretive enden-cies and unconventional itualistic practices. As secrecy andrestricted distribution f knowledge were already ecognizedattributes f traditional dstudsstra, he conception of a mag-ical diagram hat encoded secrets related o building heoryand practice appeared elatively asyto maintain.51

But what kind of information was the mandala sup-posed to have encoded for the builder? Again, Kramrisch san informative source on this point. According to her, atleast in the case of the temples, if not all buildings, the

square gridof the

Vastupurusaman.dala rovideda basic met-

ric for the built form. The squares of the grids were seen asthe basic modules upon which the dimensions-not just ofthe plans, but also, ike the geometrical methods of medievalmasons, of their elevations as well-were based (Figure 7).As Kramrisch ut it, "The drawing of the Mandala gives the'pitch' according to which the ground plan (talacchanda)has its consistency."52

The dimensions of the temple superstructure, ccord-

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The Governing DiagramAs we start o see the gradual mergence hrough he middleyears of this century of the idea of the mandala as an archi-tectural governing device, it becomes evident that the ideawas not so much discovered ithin traditional iterature as itwas constructed.Starting off as orthogonal schemes uponwhich the functions of towns or settlements ould be broadlyarranged, hepadavinyds rids had, by the middle of this cen-tury, grown into complex diagrams embodying profoundthought on the nature of building and dwelling. The col-lected evidence from different sources-the descriptions ofthe square Vastuman.dala n the architectural manuals; tsmention in the context of the layout of complexes and set-tlements; the more explanatory iscussions n the Puranas,Agamas, and other texts; ts relation o the legend of the Vds-tupurusa; nd the enigmatic depiction of the mandalas/yantrasinside plans of temples n the medieval drawings f the Oris-

Figure 6 Roriczer's ethod or he generation fa pinnacle roma square base. The relationshipbetween the square nd he elevation f the pin-naclemay have proved uggestive o scholars fIndian rchitecture.

san temples-all went into the idea of the Vstupurusaman-dala as a device governing architectural orm.

Ostensibly, he silpamanuals cast the Vdstupurusaman-dala as a figural device representing a hierarchical rder ofthe deities that were to be systematically propitiated toensure successful enure of a built form. Following Kram-risch's work, it acquired an additional ymbolic dimension,one that was both cosmological and anthropomorphic. twas seen as nothing less than the ideal built form of theHindus, simultaneously representing the shape of theinhabited earth and the hierarchical structure of the ele-ments constituting it. By constructing buildings or cities,the builder was seen as the reproducing gent of this genericform, creating, as some have argued, an identity with theHindu cosmos at large.54 To this extent, the mandalaremained an iconic object, reproduced within the plans ofcities and buildings. But the mandala came to acquire an

36 JSAH / 59:1, MARCH 2000

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Figure 7 Kramrisch's econstruction of the method for determiningthe profile of the Nagara sikhara on the basis of a square grid

operative significance as well; through its form and matrixof lines, it was seen as a device that significantly controlledthe planning, form, and dimensions of architectural truc-tures-an opinion that continues to persist.55

The Challenge of Unsupportive Evidence

How far is this theory supported by evidence? As we haveseen, textual evidence on this matter is neither clear nordecisive. On the one hand, there are explicit statements,such as those in Mayamatam, which direct the architect touse grids associated with the Vdstuman.dalaor locating dif-ferent buildings or functions while laying out complexes.Both in these and in the injunctions regarding he marnasthere seems to be an assumption that a mandala s to beimagined as having been laid out to cover the entire site. Inaddition to this are the measured drawings of the Orissantemples, with the mandalas embedded suggestively nside

the plans.On the other hand, much of this evidence s troubling.There is, for instance, no description within vdstusdstra it-erature of the actual practice of using the mandala as adimensioning module, or even as a design aid. Scholars whohave puzzled over this silence have generally concluded hatthe exclusion of specific details was a standard practice nthe writing of traditional texts.56They hold that specificinformation in these texts was deliberately suppressed,

partly because such knowledge was already a part of theworking training of the craftsmen, and partly because suchinformation was to be prevented rom falling nto unquali-fied hands. This argument s not completely tenable, how-ever. There is no consistent suppression of precisemeasurements or of how-to-do instructions in the vastumanuals. While it is true that several exts were concerned

with broader principles and classification, there do existtexts, such as Niranjan Mahapatra's ilparatnakosa c. 1500),that were written precisely to educate the literate sthapatiin technical matters on the design and construction ofbuildings, particularly hat of temples.57 uch texts containprecise measurements f building details and, at places, spe-cific step-by-step instructions on matters such as the con-struction of the gnomon or the testing of the soil. It is inthese texts that the absence of directions regarding he useof the mandala o generate forms is the most telling.

Moreover, the injunctions regarding he employmentof the mandala re themselves tated quite ambiguously. Wehave already seen that early scholars such as Dutt andAcharya had encountered mutually contradictory opinionsin the Mdnasara nd other texts. Although these vastu extscontained several generic statements prescribing he use ofthe ritual padavinyds chemes for particular buildings, theinstructions giving the shape and dimensions of plots orbuilding plans did not, themselves, correspond to thesegeneric prescriptions. The adoption of the foregoing threeschemes [Sthandila, Manduka and Paramasayika] as not,however, an invariable practice," Dutt was forced to admit."... Indeed there was no rigid rule on this point."58

In any case, the essential textual evidence for the gov-erning mandala does not come from technical manuals.Rather t is in the more encyclopedic or ritualistic exts-the Agamas, the Puranas, and so on-that are more ofteninvoked as sources of evidence for the genetic role of themandala. Among these, the Brhatsamhita has becomeincreasingly important, partly because of the amount ofspace devoted within it to matters related o the design andconstruction of buildings, and partly because t is one of thefew early Sanskrit exts about whose date there seems to bea comparative accord among scholars.

The Brhatsamhitd evotes two chapters on silpasastra:chapter 54 is on Vastuvidya nd chapter 56 on Prasddalak-sanddhyaya the characteristics of temples).59The chapteron Vastuvidya s the most extensive one within the wholetext. It begins with a version of the legend of the V-s-tupurusa nd, after briefly describing the diagram yantra)within which the vastu deities are to be worshipped, goeson to discuss ypes of houses, their classification nd appro-priateness or different castes, their dimensions, ocation of



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openings (related o the location of sensitive points), selec-tion of site, and construction material. The other chapter smuch shorter, enumerates a list of temple types, and dis-cusses the characteristics f each. Nowhere is a direct con-nection made between the diagrams on which the deitiesare propitiated and the typology of house plans or temples.The only place where these diagrams are ndicated as being

present coincidentally with the plans of houses is within thesection that deals with the topic of marmas; he main use ofthe diagrams, n this case, is to locate the marmas upon theplan of the built structure.

The chapter on temples is of even less help, since itdoes not even mention the diagrams. t does contain a clas-sification of temples on the basis of their shape, such asgaruda hawk), simha (lion), or padma lotus). But none ofthese shapes bear a formal correspondence with the squareVastupurusamandala. ll this is significant because severalscholars refer to Brhatsamhita precisely as the text that llus-trates he use of mandalas particularly with respect to houseplans.60 n reality, however, he only place where the authorof Brhatsamhita iscusses the issue is in verses 71 to 75.61Here, he points out the effects on the house and its occu-pants of locating doors n the parts of the house occupied byvarious deities. All that this implies, though, is that differ-ent areas of the house are identified according to the pre-siding deities of that area; in other words, a latentVastupurusamandala s assumed as being coterminous withthe house. There is no direct evidence for such a mandalaactually being used as a grid for planning the residence.

Those who cite the Brhatsamhita s a source of evi-

dence for the governing role of the mandala do not drawan adequate distinction between the two separate views ofthe mandala-the mandala s an iconic device recording herelative ocation of deities, and the mandala as a generativeor design tool. Evidence pointing to the one is interpretedas evidence for the other. It is quite possible, however, hatthe plan of any given building may be read as being coex-tensive with the mandala, without it having been designedusing the mandala, or even conforming to its shape.

An even greater challenge to the idea of a governingmandala comes through the evidence from practice. If wewere to

acceptthat the mandala was

typicallyused as a

design tool, then actual built examples must show evidenceof planning based on the mandala. However, scholars havefound it extremely difficult to relate forms of existing his-torical buildings to the Vastupurusaman.dalas, xcept in acursory or schematic manner. A good illustration of this isan attempt made by Alice Boner.

In a 1975 article discussing he contents of Silpasarini-an Orissan treatise on the construction and description of

D L

Figure 8 Boner's drawing of a Mahaprasasta Pancaratha ype of tem-

ple superstructure rom its description in the Silpasarini

temples-Boner shows how well-known historical xamplessuch as the Padma Kesara Deula at Konark correspondclosely to the sastric prescriptions.62 For instance, sherelates the dimensions of the temple superstructure, othin plan and section, to a measuring scheme based upon atriplet of modules (mulasutra) ndicated n Silpasarini, vdstumanual rom the region (Figure 8). However, when she triesto account for the presence of the three yantras depictedwithin the measured

plans of these temples in documentsfrom the seventeenth century, she is forced to admit thatthe text is not very informative (Figure 9).63 She suggeststhat a correspondence xistsbetween the mandala diagramsand each of the plans of the sanctum and the outer pavilions;but this is sketchy at best. For example, nothing of the elab-orate layering of the Saurabhadrayantra, rawn within thesanctum plan, can be traced to the actual structure of thesanctum. The only correspondence is that between the

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Figure 9 Boner's reconstruction of the yantras indicated within the

plans of the Parama Surya temple at Konark

square outline and the four parsvadevatds (the major sup-porting deities) of the yantra, which are placed n niches onthe outside walls of the sanctum. Correspondence s simi-larly vague n the case of the plan of the mukhasal (the mid-dle pavilion) and the Saurapancabjaman.dala nderlying it.One may match the four lotuses drawn within the cornersof the mandala to the four columns that support themukhasala, ut beyond that, nothing of the actual architec-

tural detail necessary to the mandala can be discernedwithin the plan. Boner points out how some of the deitiesplaced around the periphery of the pavilion correspond othe positions marked on the mandalas, et not all the deitiesof the mandala an be identified n the mukhasald. he mostfundamental disagreement, however, s metrical; he man-dala is drawn is upon a grid of 5 x 5 squares, while themukhasald, n accordance with the method described n Sil-pasdrini, s constructed upon a grid of 12 x 12 modules. Very

little, besides obvious gross details, s found in the descrip-tion or in the use of the mandala o have a bearing upon therich architectural orm.

Michael Meister s another cholar who has explored hisissue at length, maintaining hat mandala was used to foundthe temple "not just ritually, but as an architectural mecha-nism used to plan and proportion he ... monument."64 n a

series of studies, he has carefully measured plans of severalHindu temples (and n a few cases, the elevations) and sub-

jected them to detailed geometrical analysis.65 everal ofMeister's geometrical exercises have been designed to showthat even the complex outlines of temple superstructures anbe constructed upon square grids. In general, his argumentseems to bear out quite well, and a number of temples show

signs of having been designed upon an orthogonal gridaround quare anctum hambers. This is not always he case,however. A good example are the "stellate" lans discussed

by Meister in a 1982 paper, n which the exterior orms ofthe sanctum chambers

appearo be based on rotations of

squares nd cannot obviouslyhave been derived directly romthe orthogonal grid of the vdstu diagrams.66 o resolve this,Meister proposes hat two different geometries were used for

dimensioning he temple plans. While the square nterior ofthe sanctums was based on the simple orthogonal grid of theVastumandala, he exterior was composed using what he callsthe "geometry f the sulva-sutras," asedon "peg-and-string"constructions.67

For all its ingenuity, his is a somewhat puzzling argu-ment. There are no indications within the literature on the

history of Indian mathematics, or within vastusastra exts,that there were two separate echniques of geometrical on-structions prevalent at any time. Rather, some silpamanu-als specifically ecord peg-and-string operations o ensure a

precisely oriented construction of the square perimeter ofthe Vastupurusamandala tself. Diagonals appear, urther-more, within the drawing of the Vdstupurusamandalas,ndi-

cating that strict use of orthogonal lines was never acriterion or the construction of the Vastumandala. learly,an a priori acceptance of the idea that the square nterior ofthe sanctums can only derive from the strictly orthogonalgrid of the Vastuman.dala orces Meister to propose an alter-

native geometry for the exterior, where orthogonality isinadequate o explain the form. It would, perhaps, be sim-pler to accept that a single geometrical matrix underlies hesuperstructures of these temples and generates both theorthogonal nteriors of their sanctums as well as their stel-late exteriors. But if so, the ritual significance of such a geo-metrical grid (and its symbolization of the Vdstupurusa)would come into question. After all, the Vastuman.dala ia-gram must be cardinally riented to be efficacious.Rotating



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Figure 10 Siva temple,Mundesvari. Meister's draw-

ing illustrating he 12 x 12

grid that corresponds to the

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Documents

On the Idea of the Mandala as a Governing Device in Indian Architectural Tradition SONIT BAFNA