sutradhars, according to legend, are the carpenters descended from maya, son of vishwakarma. from the "rigveda", vishwakarma is the divine engineer of the universe. in the skanda purana he had five children — manu, maya, tvastar, shilpi and visvajna — and these are believed by the vishwakarma community to have been the forebears of their five sub-groups, being respectively the gotras (clans) of blacksmiths, carpenters, bell metalworkers (metal casters), stonemasons and goldsmiths. together, these sons are known as rathakar, or builders of chariots.