The Mayamata is a South Indian Sanskrit treatise on architecture closely related in subject matter to the Manasara, covering site selection and preparation, the vastu purusha mandala, and detailed prescriptions for house and temple design organized around systems of proportional measurement. Its name derives from Maya, a figure in Hindu mythology associated with craft and architectural skill, though as with the Manasara the attribution functions as a traditional framing device rather than evidence of a specific historical author.
Scholars place the Mayamata's composition within a South Indian, likely Tamil-region context, and its content shows both close overlap with and meaningful divergence from the Manasara, which has made comparative study of the two texts a useful way of tracing regional variation within the broader shilpa shastra tradition rather than treating Sanskrit architectural literature as a single uniform body of instruction across the subcontinent. The text addresses buildings ranging from modest houses to substantial temple complexes, scaling its proportional systems to structures of very different size and purpose.
Its treatment of iconography, alongside architecture proper, extends the text's scope to the placement and proportion of images within the structures it describes, integrating built form and sculpted image into a single coherent design system rather than treating them as separate crafts.