Manasara Series (I. A Dictionary of Hindu Architecture; II. Indian Architecture according to Manasara-Shilpashastra; III. Manasara on Architecture and Sculpture: Sanskrit Text; IV. Architecture of Manasara: Translation; V. Architecture of Manasara: Illustrations; VI. Hindu Architecture in India and Abroad; VII. An Encyclopaedia of Hindu Architecture) v1.c3.21

v1.c3.21

*Need of showing the results achieved*—Although it would be presumptuous for anybody to say that the subject of a dictionary like this has been exhausted in a pioneer work, I might be permitted, in justice to myself, to add that all the known and knowable materials which were likely to be of any use for this dictionary, have been closely consulted and utilized. Whether the results will justify the great labour involved will have to be left to the actual experiment of those who are in need of such a work. But the tremendous difficulties of a compilation like this will perhaps be not fully brought home to all readers, because “no one but those who have taken part in similar labours, can at all realize the amount of tedious toil, I might almost say drudgery, involved in doing everything ‘singlehanded’, collecting the quotations and verifying references and meanings, making indices and lists of words, sorting and sifting an ever-increasing store of materials, revising old work, arranging and re-arranging new, correcting and re-correcting, writing and re-writing, and interlineating ‘copy’, till reams upon reams of paper have been filled, putting the eye-sight, patience, and temper to a severe trial.”