Measurement and Proportion in Hindu

Temple Architecture
PROFESSOR MICHAEL W. MEISTER
Departments of the History of Art and South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

Proportion and measure interacted in the evolution and construction of the Hindu temple from the 5th through the
15th century AD, but, throughout this history, proportion dominated as the tool to give the monument both validity
and form. This reviewanalyzes the ritual force of proportion and its function in the planning of temples by architects.
The diagrams that accompany the article are the result of field research and the analysis of built structures.

In ancient late Vedic India, ritual centered on an altar
for sacrifice; built of brick, its primary shape was
square, taking the shape of the created universe in
early Indian cosmogony.I This act of 'creation' was
the archetype for the architect's role as builder. Texts
of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC- among the earliest
written texts surviving from India - record the
geometry used to construct these altars. One of these
texts explains that 'all the surface of the earth is vedi
[altar]. . . . Still, selecting a particular part of it and
measuring it they should perform the [sacrifice]
there.'2
This 'altar' of early ritual marks both the inner
sanctum and the upper limit of later Hindu temples,
created to give shelter for images that make divinity
manifest in a new way for worship. On some 'early
Nagara temples, such as the Visva-Brahma at Alam-
pur of the late 7th century AD, such a square altar
physically appears as the uttaravedl or 'upper altar'
at the top of the curvilinear tower of the temple.3
Ritual Diagram
Ritual dimensions for the Vedic altar were well docu-
mented by the time temples began to take on a distinc-
tive architectural definition in the 5th to 7th centuries
AD. An early 6th-century text, the Brhat Samhitii of

A-I .J.["- IBkIJ1-l So. l.Bhu.

Van~!la

Kas/l.~1I4il

Sugrh;'a.

Figure 1. Vastumar:u;lala (building diagram) of

9 x9=81 squares, used for the planning of
houses, palaces. and cities. Such a diagram had
its origin as early as the 4th and 3rd centuries
BC, from which texts survive that specify the
geometry for construction of brick altars. The
central squares are the most sacred space (the
brahmastana); the 32 peripheral squares house
guardian deities (padadevatas). (After Kern.4)
Figure 2. VastumaQl;lala of 8 x8=64 squares.
Prescribed in the Brhat SariJita, a sixth-century-
AD text, specifically for the planning of temples
and actually used in north India for planning
temple structures from at least the 6th century.
(After Kern.4)

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 . II ,0

Figure 3. Bhubanesvara, Orissa, eastern India.

+N
Figure 4. Mahua, Madhya Pradesh, central
M

India. Siva Temple no. 2, ca. AD650-675. Ground-

plan with constructing grid. The central projec-
tion of each wall measures the interior brah-
mastlina (the central four squares of the
Parasuramesvara Temple, ca. AD 600-650. sanctum); the flanking offsets measure the full
Groundplan. The thickness of the walls, dimension of the sanctum. The degree of projec-
measured at the corners, is half the breadth of tion for these offsets is a half and a full square.
the sanctum, as specified in the Brhat SariJhitli.

Varahamihira, records in a chapter on domestic and
city architecture that structures were normally to be
built in relation to a grid of 9 x 9 = 81 squares (Figure
I); the same text specifies in a separate chapter that
a grid of 8 x 8 = 64 squares should be used for building
temples (Figure 2).4 The peripheral squares of these
diagrams house guardian deities (padadevatas); the
central squares mark the most sacred space (the place
for brahman). 5 The Brhat Sari/hila specifies that the
thickness of the walls of a temple should be half the
width of the sanctum but gives few other clues to the
proportional systems appropriate to the newly
developing temple architecture.6 Later texts give grids
of 8 x 8,9 x9, and 10 x 10; others give a wide variety
of grids, declaring, in one instance, that 'each is fit
for all.,7
The ritual grid of the Vedic altar provides a con-
tinuity of significance for the Hindu temple; it sanc-
tifies the temple and also guards it. The problem for
the architectural historian has been to find whether
practical means existed by which the dimensions of
the altar could be applied to an increasingly complex
architectural tradition.8 Stella Kramrisch, whose
volumes on The Hindu Temple in 1946 helped restore
a ritual dimension to Western understanding of
Hindu architecture, wrote that the ritual diagram (the
vastupuru$ama1;IlJala)'is the metaphysical plan of the
temple' but that 'this does not imply an identity of
the actual plan of the temple with the mal).-
l;iala. . . . When the great temples were built... the
drawing of the vastupuru~amal).l;iala had become an
architectural rite.'9
My work in the field has shown that this grid,
however, continued to provide a practical tool for the
architect, flexible in its application over a number of
centuries 10;by preserving the ritual grid, the architect

PROFESSOR MICHAEL W. MEISTER is professor of Indian art in the History of Art and South
Asia Regional Studies Departments at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and pre-
viously taught at the University of Texas, Austin. He received his PhD from Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass., in 1974. He was born in Florida, USA, in 1942, and is Editor of the American
Institute of Indian Studies' EncyclopiBdia of Indian Temple Architecture. His first visit to India
was on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1964--66 and he was a Senior Fulbright Fellow in 1976-77. He
was convenor for the 'Discourses on Siva' Symposium held in conjunction with the recent
Manifestations of Siva exhibition in America.
Address: G-29 Meyerson Hall CJ, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.

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 - r---,

I I

I I

D
48 em.

Figure 5. Amral, Madhya Pradesh. Mahadeva

Temple, ca. AD 700. Measured grid of ground-
plan. Wall offsets measure the sanctum and the
central brahmastana (measurements are made
at the base of the wall-moldings). The levels of
projection are a quarter and half a square.
Figure 6. Amrol, view of Mahadeva Temple fram
south. The cardinal niche contains an image of
GaQesa, Siva's son. Corner niches contain
images of Siva's host: either Dikpalas (Guar-
dians of the Directions) or bhOtas (goblins).

Figure 7. Osiafi, Rajasthan, western India. Harihara Temple no. 1, ca. AD 750. View from west. This
temple has four subsidiary shrines on the corners of a raised platform. These make manife(>t the
goddess (SW); SOrya, the sun god (SE); Vi~Qu (NE); and GaQesa (NW). The central divinity was
probably a cosmic form of Vi~Qu.

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Figure 8. GangaikoQ<;Iaco!apuram, Tamilnadu,
south India. Brhadesvara Temple, ca. AD 1035.
Groundplan with constructing grid. An odd-
numbered grid, as if for a city or palace, has
been applied to create the surrounding walls
and paths for ambulation.
Figure 9. Diagram showing the transformation
of square-based groundplans in north India from
the 7th to the 10th century AD:upper left, Mahua,
Siva Temple no. 2, ca. AD 650-675; upper right,
Bhavanipur, Nakti-mata Temple, ca. AD 875;
lower half, Kiradu, Rajasthan, Vi~QuTemple, ca.
late 10th century AD (left, showing the wall with
its ornamental niches).
[I] [j]
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ONE METER
Figure 10. Bhavanipur, Rajasthan. Nakti-mata
Temple, ca AD 875. Groundplan with construct-
ing grid. Instead of planes projecting from the
grid, the walls of this temple pull in the corners
from the perimeter of the grid. The central
offsets still measure the sanctum and the brah-
mastana.
preserved the sanctity of the ritual altar, mimicking
in his act that of the priest constructing the altar,
itself the re-creation of a continuing cosmic creation.
I am concerned with practical ways in which archi-
tects used a grid with ritual potency to form a new
architecture, giving that architecture utilitarian pro-
portions appropriate to an ancient tradition, while
remaining free as architects to create new, and
increasingly complicated, forms.
Diagram of Construction
Temples of the early 7th-century AD surveyed in
eastern India, near the beginning of the stone-temple
tradition, are square (Figure 3), with a sanctum allow-
ing entry from one direction, but projecting 'entries'
on the three other cardinal walls in the form of niches
with images related to the central divinity. Measured
at the level where wall-moldings meet the foundation
- a level where lines can sometimes be seen scratched
in the stone - the thickness of walls is half the width
of the sanctum, thus conforming to the Brhat Sam-
hila's grid of 8 x 8 squares (Figure 2).
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 In slightly later temples in central India, the planes
of projection from the walls of the temple - planes
that act as planes of manifestation for the divinity
within - begin to be measured themselves by the 8 x 8
grid (Figure 4). In these structures the central projec-
tion on each wall measures the 2 x 2 dimension of the
interior' brahmastiina'; the flanking offsets measure
the 4 x 4 square dimension of the sanctum itself
(Figure 5). Such proportions appear only at the lip
of the wall's moldings, where the walls of the temple
touch the foundation, the floor level of the interior;
in later temples, as the temple is increasingly placed
on an elevated and molded plinth, this level remains
the location of the grid's proportions, and the grid
becomes more and more a secret device used by the
architect, and not the engineer, to control design
rather than construction.
The ritual grid provides specific proportions for

. .
the exterior of the temple - in these early examples,
ratios of 2: I : 2: I: 2 for offsets of the wall - the value
of which is that they reflect on the exterior the sig-
nificant portions of an interior altar that is beginning
to make divinity manifest in the form of images
~ ~ ~ ~ (Figure 6).
In the first example illustrated here (Figure 4), the
degree to which the planes of each wall project from
M
+N the square is measured by a half and by a full square
of the grid. This does not reflect a rule; in other
temples, this projection may be a quarter and a half
Figure 11. Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. of a grid-measure (Figure 5). Since this degree of
Visvanatha Temple, dated AD 1002. Groundplan projection varies from temple to temple, it would
of sanctum with proportioning grid. The grid is
placed at the base of the wall-moldings, above seem a measure pragmatically determined rather than
a molded plinth, and within an enclosed ambula- one of ritual significance. In like fashion, the walls
tory passage. enclosing the actual entry to the sanctum - while

Figure 12. Khajuraho, Madhaya Pradesh. Visvanatha Temple, dated AD 1002. View from the south.
The temple stands on a large platform which originally had subsidiary shrines on the four corners.

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~ .~
k"
- I
'"
Figure 13. Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. Kan-
dariya Mahadeva Temple, ca. AD 1025-1050.
Groundplan of temple with proportioning grid.
subject to analysis in specific instances - also vary in
their measurement from temple to temple. What do
remain constant, and seem the primary reason for
architects to use the ritual grid, are measurements
that place the dimensions of the inner sanctum and
its sacred central space onto the exterior walls of the
temple in the form of planes on which images that
reflect and make manifest the divinity within can be
placed (Figures 5-7).
Alternative Systems
The system just described, however, is not the only
one by which architects in India have used the ritually
significant grid. In south India, for example, Oravi<;la
temples throughout their long history remain
primarily square structures, with offsets and recesses
along straight walls (Figure 8)11;in this they seem to
reflect palatial architecture, and eventually they take
on much of the form and significance of palaces and
cities. While this tradition only occasionally offers
direct evidence supporting the use of a proportioning
diagram, in some of the grand 'meru' ('mountain-
like') temples - such as the eleventh-century temple
-------------
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Figure 14. asian, Rajasthan. Harihara Temple
no. 1, ca. AD 750. Partial ground plan showing
separate grids for the central and subsidiary
shrines. The central shrine uses the karfla vyasa
system shown in Figure 4; the subsidiary shrines
use bhadra measure as shown in Figure 10.
at Gailgaikol).<;lacolapuram (Figure 8) - an odd-
numbered grid appropriate for a palace or city (as
the 9 x9 = 81-square grid specified in the Brhat Sari/-
hila) has been used 12; in such a grid, a single square
at the center is ringed by concentric bands of the
remaining squares. These form concentric, increas-
ingly larger squares that have been used to define the
ambulatory paths and walls that sheath the temple
and protect its contents. This is done in a way quite
different from what we have found in north India
(Figures 4 and 5).
The plan of the Hindu temple in north India, in
fact, underwent a remarkable transformation between
the 7th and lith centuries (Figure 9). Walls became
thinner, offsets increased, and in some instances the
plan began to show rotation of squares; in others it
was offset in a way to resemble a diamond more than
a cardinally oriented square. Throughout, the ritual
grid continued to act as the architect's tool, sanctify-
ing by its use the monuments the architect created.
As a tool, its application to increasingly complex
structures, which strove both for aesthetic and for
political potency through religious means, required
a flexible and probably increasingly secret application
of the grid's ritually vital proportions.
In temples in western India of the 8th century and
in central India from the 9th century onward, I have
found in use an alternative system by which the 8 x 8
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 BHADRA
KARNA
PRATIRATHA
Figure 15. Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. TelT-ka-
mar:Jc;tir,ca. AD 725-750. Quarter groundplan
showing expansion of square grid to produce a
rectangular temple. Third measures of the grid
have been used to make proportionate
adjustments of parts on the short and long walls.
grid was applied to the temple; this allowed the
architect considerable freedom to manipulate the pro-
portions of his structure to achieve a greater balance
in the elevation. This system, rather than projecting
planes from each wall beyond the grid as in the system
previously described, measured the temple across the
greatest extension of its walls, pulling the corners
Figure 16. Barwasagar, Uttar Pradesh. Jarai
Math, ca. AD 900. Groundplan with grid. Thirds
of the. grid measure, as in Figure 15, have again
been used to make adjustments on the walls of
this very different plan.
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inside the grid by reducing their dimensions (Figure
10). The flanking and central offsets of the wall con-
tinue to measure the sanctum and its central brahma-
stiina, but by pulling the corners within the grid (they
usually measure about one-and-a-third squares in
width), this system allows a thinner fabric for the
temple, produces more balanced proportions in the
facade, and allows the architect greater flexibility in
the working out of details in his elevation.
This process of adaptation had been taken even
further by the 10th century. At Khajuraho, in central
India, where the sanctum itself sits on a molded plinth
within ambulatory walls and the temple then rests on
a molded platform with subsidiary shrines at the
corners, the 8 x 8 grid was still used to measure the
walls that enclose the inner sanctum (Figure 11), but
with corners pulled in even further. Placed at the base
of the wail's moldings, but above a molded socle
within the ambulatory, well above floor level, this
grid remained a potent part of the architect's design,
though no longer acting as means by which the archi-
tect/ engineer could actually construct the temple
from the ground (Figure 12).
Proportion and Measure
The extended grid, however, did help the master
architect to locate both the ambulatory walls and
spaces for the aspirants in halls along the axis in front
of the sanctum (Figure 13). Measurements derived
from the proportions placed around the sanctum, not
those proportions themselves, were the tools used by
craftsmen who began to construct the temple from
base level. One surviving medieval text describes the
architect as training recruits to build temples exact
in all their details; only then should he select a few
appropriate disciples to whom to teach the principles
behind the architecture they had created.13
The ritual grid guards and girds the inner sanctum;
its proportions can be used to determine the actual
measurements by which the plinth and the surround-
ing walls will actually be located, but the proportions
remain at the center of the temple complex, not at
its periphery. This can be seen in those complexes
that place a central shrine and four corner subshrines
on an extended rectangular platform; rather than
finding the entire complex an extension of the grid
that determines the proportions of the central temple,
I find that each separate shrine uses its own grid,
determined by the measure of its sanctum (Figure
14). One of the earliest of these, at asian in Rajasthan
from the middle of the 8th century, not only shows
each shrine proportioned by its own 8 x 8 grid, each
using a different measure, but the central and sub-
sidiary shrines in this instance also use different sys-
tems for applying the grid - one measuring the temple
at the corner, the other across the projections; these
two systems are called bhadra and kanJa vyiisa.14
I have also attempted to analyze certain exceptional
temples that take shapes other than square to test
whether these support or refute the use of a propor-

Figure 17. Indor, Madhya Pradesh. Gargaj
Mahadeva temple, ca. AD 750. Groundplan
showing grid of 10 x 10 squares (upper right)
that relates the sanctum to the outer walls and
(left) the turned squares that determine the
geometry of the outer walls.
tioning grid. A small number of rectangular struc-
tures, for example, demonstrate that architects first
expanded the dimensions of the sanctum to create a
rectangle and then adjusted parts of the outer walls
by use of third measures of the grid to provide propor-
tionality.ls The Tel1-ka-maI.H;lirin the Gwalior fort,
for example, expands its sanctum from 4 x 4 to 4 x 6
squares (Figure 15); central and flanking offsets on
both long and short walls continue to measure the
width and breadth of the inner sanctum. Offsets on
Figure 18. Geometry prescribed in texts of the
fourth and third centuries BC for locating the
Square of the brick altar. An east-west line was
located using a gnomon. Circles, drawn using a
simple stake and attached cord, were used to
locate a north-south line, cardinal points, and
the corners of the square that became the altar.
i !
M ~1 +N
Figure 19. Kharod, eastern Madhya Pradesh.
SabarT Temple, 7th century AD. Groundplan with
constructing grid. Corners of the turned square
used to locate intermediate parts of the temple's
wall have been determined by extending the
8 x 8 grid by two squares on either side.
both walls use subordinate facets measuring each
one-third of a square in order to produce dimensions
that preserve simple proportions. A second rec-
tangular temple, from about a hundred and fifty years
Figure 20. Sirpur, eastern Madhya Pradesh.
Ram Temple, 7th century AD. Groundplan with
constructing grid. A two-square measure of the
grid has been used as radius for the circles that
locate the turned squares that fix the position
of the intermediate facets on the wall.
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 Figure 21. Udayapur. Madhya Pradesh. Udayesvara Mahadeva Temple, inscribed AD 1081. Groundplan
showing both proportioning grid and constructing geometry. The grid relates the walls of the temple
to the sanctum; the geometry that locates turned squares can also be applied at the base of the
molded socle.

later, that essentially melds the plans of two square,
offset temples, also expands its sanctum to a ratio of
2: 3 and uses thirds of squares to mediate proportions
on the short and long sides (Figure 16).
The grid used to construct the early altar thus
provided both a rationale and proportions to guide
the development of temple architecture; it ritually
sanctified the temple and guarded it. At the same
time, it gave the architect a tool fiexible enough to
allow enormous variation over time. Within its girding
proportions, the architect could manipulate his struc-
ture with considerable freedom. He remained bound
to its use because of its utility - at levels of ritual and
secrecy, but also offiexibility and order in the process
of creating a design.
Geometry and Design
The grid - and proportions derived from it - could
be manipulated by an architect in making a design.
1 have tested this by looking at some of the few
temples that are not purely quadrilateral. In one case,
I have analyzed an octagonal temple built early in
the 7th century (early in the evolution of temple
architecture); in another, a temple with a twelve-
sided plan dating from the middle of the 8th century
(Figure 17).'6 In both instances, geometry rather
than measure has been used to locate the outer
walls; yet in both, the grid continues to be used
to relate the inner space of the temple to its outer
dimensions.

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 The geometry used for these exceptional examples
is in fact the geometry described in texts of the 4th
and 3rd centuries BC for constructing the square of
the altar using a gnomon, and a stake and rope to
draw circles (Figure 18). The use of this geometry for
temple architecture, however, did not exclude or
replace the use of proportions suggested by the altar's
square grid. In some instances in the 7th century AD,
the grid itself was used to mimic turned plans (Figure
19); in one instance I illustrate (Figure 20), the grid's
measure was itself used as the radius for circles to
locate the corners of squares that produce peculiar
intermediate turned facets of the wall.17
In perhaps the most famous of 'turned-square'
temples of medieval India - the Udayesvara temple
at Udayapur, Madhya Pradesh, inscribed AD 1081 -
the architect in fact combines geometry to construct
the temple at base level with the ritual grid surround-
ing the sanctum at the level of the wall-moldingsl8
(Figure 21). The projections of the walls are related
to the inner sanctum using the grid, but the
dimensions of the sanctum are related to those at the
base of the ornamented plinth, where the temple
actually had first to be constructed, using a geometry
of circles and squares circumscribed around the sanc-
tum (Figure 22). While the sanctum walls thus remain
protected by the proportions of the sacred grid, the
plinth is here related to the sanctum by the flexible,
yet controlled geometry of the engineer.
Interdisciplinary Relevance
If I stop to think about the relevance of this study to
the history of science, or to interdisciplinary science
studies, I would have to say that through it we may
LITERATURE
1. C. P. S. Menon, Early Astronomy and Cosmology, George
Allen & Unwin, London (1932).
R. N. Apte, Some points connected with the geometry of
the Vedic Altar. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research
Institute 7,1-16 (1926).
2. Apfe, p. 14, citing the Apastamba SrautasOtra.
3. Michael W. Meister, A note on the superstructure
of the Marhia Temple. Artibus Asiae 36, 81-88 (1974),
fig. 4.
Michael W. Meister, Construction and conception: Ma(1-
c;lapika shrines of Central India. East and West, new series
26,409--418 (1976).
M. A. Dhaky, The 'Akasaliriga' finial. Artibus Asiae 36, 307-
315 (1974).
4. Varahamihira, Brhat Sari1hita, trans. by H. Kern, Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society, new series 4-7, (1869-1874). chs.
53 and 56.
5. Called the 'Brahmastana', this central space is sometimes
identified by modern astrologers as inhabited by Brahma,
the third deity of the Hindu triad. The name, however, goes
back to an earlier concept of 'brahman' as a non personified
'supreme reality'.
6. 56.10-14.
7. Kamikagama 17.107.
8. Andreas Volwahsen, Living Architecture: Indian, Grosset
and Dunlap, New York (1969).
9. Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple, two vols., University of
Calcutta, Calcutta (1946), pp. 37 note, 58, 228.
Figure 22. Diagram showing how the inner
dimensions of the sanctum of the Udayesvara
Temple have been related to the maximum
extension of the outer socle by means of a series
of circumscribed circles and squares.
begin to see that myth and science are not always
disconnected: belief - as in the practice and study of
geometry in ancient India - can provide incentive for
developing science, and technology - as in the use
of measure and proportion by India's master archi-
tects - can serve myth.
Acknowledgement
All drawings and photographs are by the author. This article is
based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the College
Art Association of North America in Toronto, Canada, in February
1984.
CITED
10. Michael W. Meister, Ma(1c;1alaand practice in Nagara archi-
tecture in North India. Journal of the American Oriental
Society 99.2,204-219 (1979).
Michael W. Meister, Mu(1c;1esvarT:Ambiguity and certainty
in the analysis of a temple plan, in Kaladarsana: American
Studies in the Art of India, Joanna G. Williams (Ed.), pp.
77-90, American Institute of Indian Studies, New Delhi
(1981).
Michael W. Meister, Analysis of temple plans: Indor. Artibus
Asiae 43, 392-320 (1982).
Michael W. Meister, Geometry and measure in Indian temple
plans: Rectangulartemples. Artibus Asiae 44, 266-296 (1983).
Michael W. Meister, The Udayesvara Temple plan, in SrTnid-
hi/): Shri K. R. Srinivasan Festschrift, pp. 85-93, New Era
Publications, Madras (1983).
11. Built on a straight manasiitra. Cardinal points are marked
by false doors or niches; in some temples these begin to
project from the straight face of the temple, probably in
imitation of north Indian norms. See Encyclopaedia of Indian
Temple Architecture, vol. 1, pt. 1, South India, Lower
Dravic;ladesa, edited by Michael W. Meister, Oxford Uni-
versity Press, New Delhi (1983).
12. My analysis depends on a measured plan kindlyshared with
me by the French Institute of Indology, Pondicherry.
13. Alice Boner, Extracts from the Silpasari(1T,in Studies in
Indian Temple Architecture, Pramod Chandra (Ed.), pp.
57-79, American Institute of Indian Studies, New Delhi
(1975).
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE REVIEWS, VOL. 10, NO.3, 1985 257
14. The next temple in sequence at asian, the Harihara Temple
no. 2, uses bhadra vyasa - measurement across the projec-
tions - for both the central and subsidiary shrines.
15. Meister, Geometry and measure l0
16. MUI:H;lesvari ; Analysis of Temple Plans~...
17. Michael W. Meister, $iva's forts in Central India: Temples
in Dak~iQa Kosala and their 'dremonic' plans, in Discourses
on Siva, Michael W. Meister (Ed), pp. 119-142, University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (1985).
18. The Udayesvara Temple Plan.
The manuscript was received 25 July 1984.

~:i'~..ifal

Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh. Kandariya Mahadeva Temple, elevation. (After B. L. Dhama, A Guide to
Khajuraho, p1. IV)