The Grid in the South Indian temple town Saurabh 1101

Ancient Town planning in India- Canonical texts and the Vastu Shastras

Towns in ancient India were planned according to ancient canons of town planning known as Vastu shastras. These were oral traditions, part of the Vedas that were orally transmitted for centuries before being eventually written around the fourth century. The Vastu Shastra was the text that laid down the rules of building and space making. It is important to note that, although all the texts originated from the Vedas of the Hindu religion, there was still scope for a wide variety of interpretation and significant difference especially in North and South Indian interpretation.

The first step in translating

GRID diagram.

ideology and cosmological order into reality of a city, town or temple is the formation of a representative diagram or mandala. The mandala is a two dimensional diagram that forms the basis of the city’s plan organization. The vastu shastra gives the vastu purusha mandala that suggests 32 configurations in all. The South Indian Temple Town

After the 7th century AD, the materials used for temple construction changed from brick, timber and other such materials to stone. This made temples last longer and led to the creation of several temple-centered settlements. These temple towns were often instituted by ruling dynasties as dynastic shrines. The basic form of the temple town is a the shrine in the centre and concentric rectangular rings around it, like fortification walls, that can be accessed through gates known as gopurams. The main centres of spiritualty in south India were Srirangam,

Chidambaram, Madurai, Kanchipuram, Thiruchinapalli, Tanjore etc. The South Indian temple town as an interpretation of the cosmological

For the holy city, the ideal diagram is a series of concentric circles increasing in sanctity as one nears the centre. As a square grid, a 9 x 9 square grid, wherein all 32 main gods of the Hindu pantheon fit in the peripheral squares was most preferred. In most cases of temple towns, The centre or the temple settlement coincides with the naval of the Vastu Purusha. But since the grid of the south Indian temple town is different from that of a north Indian town, it can be understood as a variant of this grid to suit the needs of the context and can be thus thought to have been implemented. The grid is basically

transformed into a set of rings thus implementing its purposes.

Temple as an overlap of cosmological and hierarchical grid solving a three-fold purpose:

The plan of Srirangam The plan of Srirangam as a GRID

a. Grid as a tool of social stratification: The grid can be understood as a tool for the show of power by the ruling dynasties. This is done by placing the ruler and nobility closest to the holy sanctuary and placing those diminishing in caste status farthest from the centre. Also, notions of pure/ impure and polluted/ unpolluted were implemented by placing communities on body parts of the Vastu Purusha associated with such qualities etc.

b. Grid as a tool to assert the Importance of the divine:

The concentric rings overlaid on the grid make one feels the force of the divine as one has to travel through several gates before one can actually reach the temple proper. This series of experiences makes one feel intimidated and samaller to the larger schema of things.

c. Grid as a manifestation of a method of worship - Parikrama.

The mode of worship in a south Indian temple is that of circumambulation or Parikrama. The grid effectively provides for this as well.

This Cosmological grid, was sometimes not adhered to, like in the case of Madurai. This is due to varied reasons of Topography and landscape features.

Here is shown, the plan of Madurai with the temple in the centre and the city all around it. There is some notion of the grid but it is broken to fit the town on the existing settlement and topography.

Thus, we can say, that the south Indian temple own is the variant of the cosmological hindu grid.