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.c6.s20.181

v1.c6.s20.181

From all the literary and epigraphical instances given above, it appears certain that the expressions Nāgara, Vesara, and Drāviḍa are primarily geographical. But the precise boundaries of Nāgara, like those of Drāviḍa and Vesara, are not traceable. The epigraphical quotations, however, would tend to localise Nāgara somewhere within the territory of modern Mysore. But the Nāgara script, the Nāgara-khaṇḍa of the Skanda-Purāṇa, and the Nāgara-Brāhmins, representing some way or other the Northern India from the Himalaya to the Vindhya and from Gujrat to Magadha, would jointly give a wider boundary to Nāgara. Besides the author of the Mānasāra shows his acquaintance with buildings of the whole of India in the passage where he divides the best types of buildings by the following designations, namely, Pāñchāla, Drāviḍa, Madhya-kānta (meaning apparently Madhyadeśa), Kaliṅga, Varāṭa (Virāṭa), Kerala, Vaṁśaka, Magadha, Janaka, and Sphū(Gu)rjaka (M. xxx. 5-7).