(iii) Maya: The Founder of the Dravidian school of Architecture

Let us now pass on to Maya, the Founder Architect Ācārya of the so called Dravidian Vāstuvidyā or school of Architecture. He is one of the eighteen professors of Architecture as mentioned in the Matsyapurāṇa. His position in the tradition is second only to Viśvakarmā. The Mānasāra, the most representative text of Dravidian architecture recounts the origin of Maya from one of the faces of the four-faced Viśvakarmā, which in the context of the accounts of Viśvakarmā representing both the cultures is perfectly in keeping with the traditions. That Maya school of Architecture was certainly different and distinct a tradition is proved by the earliest datable (550 A.D.) work on Vāstuśāstra, the Bṛhatsaṃhitā of Varāhamihira where Maya and Viśvakarmā are quoted as authors whose seemingly different statements have the same meaning. The many names of eighteen chief preceptors (ācāryas), seem to indicate an equal number of branches, or schools of Indian architecture prior to the sixth century A. D. and subsequently in Kiṣkindhā Kāṇḍa of Rāmāyaṇa (chap, 51) there is an interesting reference to Maya. It is told there how Maya acquired the knowledge of śilpaśāstra, the Science of architecture, treasure Uśanas (auśanasam dhanam) from Brahmā. This shows that the treatises of Maya and Uśanas i.e. Śukra were alike in character. And as both belong to Asuras they represented a school of their own. In the Mānasāra Viśvakarmā is described as the son of Brahmā and husband of Indra’s daughter. This is really something very confounding and how to reconcile this description with the one in which Viśvakarmā is regarded as the son of Prabhāsa Vasu? It seems that Viśvakarmā of Mānasara also belonged to a very distant epoch in history. Brahmā was the foremost invader and settler in India and the Viśvakarmā, referred to in the Mānasāra was the architect who helped his (Brahmā’s) colonists propogating his lore and acquiring theirs as well. Viśvakarmā’s advent on earth to plan out habitation of men in the Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra also supports the above genesis and this throws a flood of light on the amalgamation of the Aryan and non-Aryan elements of culture in such a distant past as we have already adduced it from the geneology of Viśvakarmā with especial reference to Vasus.

In the Mahābhārata, Viśvakarmā and Maya are mentioned, not as writers but as master-masons of the Gods and the Dānavas respectively. Viśvakarmā is said to have been the “master of thousand arts, the Vārdhakī (carpenter) of the gods and superior to all architects,” He also constructed the chariots of the gods. Men earned their livelihood by practising the arts invented by him and offered worship to Viśvakarmā (I.66.29-31). Viśvakarmā constructed the Sabhā of Vaivasvata (II.8.1) and a town, for the gods, besides a statue, a necklace and wheels of the chariots, for them. Maya calls himself the Viśvakarmā of the Dānavas. He constructed the magnificent assembly hall of the Pāṇḍavas from the materials collected by him from the kingdom of the Dānava king Vṛṣaparvā, situated to the north of Kailāśa near the Vindu-lake and to the north-east of Indraprastha (11.1.5.). We have already said that Maya is known as Danava and to have learnt the science of architecture from Śukra, the preceptor of Dānavas, Viśvakarmā and Maya represent the two schools of Indian architecture, known as Nāgara and Drāviḍa. Dr. Bhattacharya has elucidated this subject very elaborately and the readers are referred to, to read that book for details, Want of space forbids me to go in those details not very essential from my standpoint. So far the central thesis round which we have been labouring in the foregoing pages is now not difficult to establish that in the rise of Vāstuśāstra, as the science and art, two traditions have contributed to its evolution and growth. These are Viśvakarmā and Maya traditions. Now the question is what are the distinctive points which differentiate these two traditions? This question need not be dwelt upon at length here as we shall get occasion to do that—vide Pt. V—styles of Temple architecture. Here, in brief, it may be said that these two and others maybe taken to represent as many variations as lay within the fundamental purpose of the temple which has been chief creation of Hindu science of art and architecture.

Dr. Kramrisch supports this thesis:

‘The merit of the works of the schools which made it seem worth while to record the names of their most eminent preceptors lay in the manifold and ever varying solutions of their central purpose. This was the setting up of the Prāsāda as Vimāna, proportionate in its parts and directing the form and measure of all other buildings which accrued in the service of the Prāsāda.’

And I have already remarked that the Vimānas, characteristic of Āsura architecture were really the precursors of the Prāsāda, the Nagara temples. The characteristic planning and laying out the super-structure, the Bhūmis etc. and the ornamentative motifs like Āmalaka and Stūpikā etc. are some of the broad features in respect of which these two traditions have laid down their rules for the guidance of the architects in their respective domains of the styles of temple-architecture along with its component structures like columns, roofing, superstructure and its crowning part.