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.c15.s3.17

v2.c15.s3.17

In the light of all these facts—merely to deal with the question in its aspects as they concern the *Mānasāra*—it seems to me impossible to resist the following conclusion. There appears to have been a relation of indebtedness between the *Mānasāra* and the other works, both architectural and non-architectural. Except in a few instances noted above, it is, however, difficult to state definitely that the *Mānasāra* is the debtor or creditor to this or that work in respect of this or that matter. Most of the difficulties, it is needless to observe, hinge upon the chronology which is the irritating point in the Sanskrit literature. If the chronology of the works discussed above were definitely known, it would have been easier to assume that the works earlier than the *Mānasāra* had been known to its author and those later than the *Mānasāra* had been influenced by it. Except in cases of support by archæological records, epigraphical or non-epigraphical, the dates assigned to Sanskrit works are mostly but provisional. I have discussed elsewhere the available materials and the reasons which have induced me provisionally to place the *Mānasāra* somewhere in the fifth to seventh century of the Christian era In view of the essential points of comparison and the accepted chronology of the works which have been critically studied by scholars, I should say that the *Bṛihat-saṁhitā* and the later Āgamic and Paurāṇic works, in respect of architectural and sculptural matters, as well as most of the avowedly architectural manuscripts, are debtors to the *Mānasāra*, while it is a debtor itself in respect of the same matters to the Vedic and the early Epic works as also to the early polytechnical treatises (like the *Kauṭilīya-Artha-śāstra* and the *Kāmandakīya*), and to the avowedly architectural works of the thirty-two authorities mentioned in the *Mānasāra*, which might have existed till its own time. Besides, it cannot but have been based on the actual observation and measurement of extant architectural and sculptural objects; in this matter lies the special importance of the *Mānasāra*.