The Architect Who Answers to the Shastra, Not Only the Patron

A sthapati is the master architect responsible for a Hindu temple's overall design, working within the constraints set out in shilpa shastra texts such as the Mayamata and the Manasara, which prescribe the proportional systems, orientation and ritual timing a temple must follow rather than leaving these choices to the architect's free invention. The role covers far more than drawing a plan: a sthapati selects and examines the building site according to prescribed criteria, sets the temple's measurements using a proportional module usually keyed to the height or breadth of the main image or the width of the door, and oversees construction through to the consecration rites that make the finished structure fit for worship.

Kramrisch's standard study of the Hindu temple treats this proportional discipline as inseparable from the temple's religious function, since a structure built outside the prescribed measure is traditionally held to be ritually deficient regardless of how skillfully it is carved, which places real limits on a sthapati's creative freedom that a purely secular architect would not face. Site selection alone follows detailed prescriptions covering soil quality, slope, water access and even the sound the ground makes when struck, since a site judged inauspicious by these tests is set aside regardless of how convenient or attractive it otherwise appears to a patron.