Practitioner licence The page is open to read; the calculator runs with the licence.
The Upapitha mandala
At five by five the mandala gains true depth. Sixteen padas form the outer ring, eight the inner ring, and one cell remains at the exact middle for Brahma. The plan can now be read in three registers at once — edge, middle band and centre — which is precisely the layered reading the larger classical grids will refine.
The grid and its centre
The tool draws the twenty-five padas over your plan at your north angle, marks the centre cell as Brahma, and reads any tapped point by pada, ring and direction. Being an odd grid, the centre is a real cell; the reading tells you whether a point belongs to the edge, the inner ring or the centre, with the classical basis quoted alongside.
How practitioners use this
Practitioners use Upapitha when a plan needs the edge-middle-centre distinction but the full eighty-one-pada apparatus would overwhelm the brief — mid-sized homes, clinics, small offices. The ring reading maps naturally to circulation: busy functions to the edge ring, quieter ones inward, the centre kept light.
Frequently asked questions
What makes five-by-five special in the series?
It is the first grid with complete rings around a true centre cell — the layered reading in its simplest full form.
Which padas form the Brahma area?
Just the single middle cell; the rings around it are read as the inner and outer bands.
Is Upapitha only for buildings?
No — gardens, courtyards and halls read well on it too, wherever depth from the edge matters.
Free to read, licensed to run
This page is open to every reader in English and Hindi, so the Upapitha mandala can be studied freely. The interactive calculator — which lays the grid over your own plan at your north angle and reads any point you tap — runs with the Practitioner licence.
The classical basis appears with each calculation result, quoted from the practice's source records.