Chapter 67-68 - Pavilions (maṇḍapa) attached to the temples

[Note: This chapter corresponds to the following chapters of the original Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra:

Chapter 67 (Maṇḍapa-lakṣaṇa, ‘eight-fold varieties of Maṇḍapas’) corresponds to Chapter 65,
Chapter 68 (Saptaviṃśati-maṇḍapa, ‘varieties of 27 Pavilions’) corresponds to Chapter 67]

The import of the word, its different and divergent uses together with their architectural features, layouts, proportionate measurements and other details have been examined in a separate chapter (see Part V, Maṇḍapa). Here in these two chapters two broad types of Maṇḍapas have been described quite distinctly.

In the former one are described the eight-fold varieties of Maṇḍapas, viz.

1. Bhadra,
2. Maṇḍana,
3. Mahendra,
4. Vardhamāna,
5. Svastika,
6. Sarvatobhadraka,
7. Mahāpadma and
8. Gṛharāja.

These are characteristics of the varieties of proportions, otherwise they go after the Prāsādas, the main temples. The traditions still remind us that in some of the illustrations found in the monuments (Bhuvaneshvar) it is difficult to account for the distinguishing features of Maṇḍapas on the one side and the temples proper on the other. These eight Maṇḍapas are the representative proto-types of this traditional type in the art.

The second variety of the 27 Maṇḍapas, however, is not so unhelpful. The distinctive features of the Maṇḍapa architecture here is the abundant application of the columns and it is as if turning them into Hall-like structures (vide Hall-temples of 49 chapter). In the Matsya-Purāṇa, the 27 Maṇḍapas are distinguished according to the number of the columns, they are furnished with, the largest number being 64. The names and the chief features of these 27 Maṇḍapas though retained and maintained in the Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra (a work of Eleventh Century A. D.), it has added some of the ornamentative features characteristic of the Medieval architecture of which it was the most representative, a detailed notice of which is taken in the Study proper (see Part V, Chapter X). The Maṇḍapas, as exhibited in the monuments, are not furnished with walls; the roofing is formed of large slabs of granite supported by monolithic pillars; but here in the Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra the pillars are the main support, and roofing is excessively decorated as such with the pre-dominant wooden motifs as Well as different sets of mouldings characteristic of the ornamental Lāṭa Style. Again it may be pointed out that the author of Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra (vide the former chapter) classifies all the Maṇḍapas under the broad divisions Saṃvṛta and Vivṛta or attached, i. e. enclosed and detached within temples proper.