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) v2.c13.7

v2.c13.7

THE term *silpa* means an art, fine or mechanical. It covers some sixty-four such arts. But here *Śilpa-śāstra* is used in the sense of *Vāstu-śāstra*, this latter term being less usual.¹ The literal rendering of *Vāstu-śāstra* would be 'science of architecture,' but a complete *Vāstu-śāstra* deals with more than what is generally understood by architecture. In the *Vāstu-śāstras* the term architecture is taken in its broadest sense and implies what is built or constructed. Thus in the first place it denotes all kinds of buildings, religious, residential, and military; and their auxiliary members and component mouldings. Secondly, it covers town-planning; laying out gardens; constructing market-places including ports and harbours; making roads, bridges, gate-ways, triumphal arches; digging wells, tanks, trenches, drains, sewers, moats; building enclosure walls, embankments, dams, railings, landing-places, flights of steps for hills and bathing ghāts, and ladders. Thirdly, it connotes articles of furniture such as bedsteads, couches, tables, chairs, thrones, wardrobes, baskets, cages, nests, mills, conveyances, lamps and lamp-posts for streets. It also includes the making of dresses and ornaments such as chains, crowns, head-gear and foot and arm wear. Architecture also includes sculpture and deals with carving of phalli, idols of deities, statues of great personages, images of animals and birds. It is also concerned with such preliminary matters as the selection of site, testing of soil, planning, designing, finding out cardinal points by means of a gnomon, dialling, and astronomical and astrological calculations.