While constructing a temple, the thachars and perunthachars used a "basic measure" - just like a unit. All dimensions used in the temple were derived from this base measure.
Sometimes it is called "Tachchu muzham"
And invariably the sculptors had the habit of marking this measure somewhere in the temple premises. Big temple has one.
Usually this will be one to two feet long or slightly larger.
One exponent achariyar once told me thus:
You give me this base measure of any temple, I can give you the full dimensions of the complex without measuring !!!
Such is the genius. The discipline.
Most of these measures were given names. Recently you might have seen hindu posting about the discovery of a measure in kallazhagar koil.
This measure should not be confused with land measure which was also marked in temple premises but which is much longer.
* we do have measure of big temple - but this is based on modern measurements in cm and m. NO ONE has even attempted to explore or measure the lengths and breadths of big temple(to the best of my knowhow) based on tachu muzham though it has been very prominently displayed in the temple premises.
> Can we take Thachu Muzham as a kind of Scale in a Drawing.. which > varies from one drawing to another drawing.. ?
* SPS, Being an architect yourself, you got the very gist of it. Yes - it is the scale.
> Is it also possible THACHU MUZHAM varies according to Prakaaras > (Thiruchutru?) or EXTENT (Area) ..
* Difficult to assess. How the dimension of a given temple influenced the scale? is the million dollar question.
Can you explain this in with little more details? What does deriving off this base measure mean? Does this mean everything is measured in the multiples of this 'basic measure'. Based on SPS's post I understand it is like the 'scale' on a civil engineering drawing or say a geographical map. What more is there to it?
> Can you explain this in with little more details?
Pl do not take 'scale' in modern terms - because scale only helps to size a given drawing to a given sheet.
But the muzham we are talking about is slightly different.
Our sculptors seem to have employed some base measure and derived everything else from this base measure. This helped to maintain specific proportions of a temple.
But this topic has'nt been researched that well. For example, the proportions of big temple are quite different in many respects (from a conventional chola temple) so we are not sure how the base measure is 'connected' with the dimensions of the temple.