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.c16.116

v2.c16.116

“Both the Indian and Grecian columns are diminished gradually in their diameter from the base to the summit of the shaft, a practice which has never been observed in the Egyptian; on the contrary, a diametrically opposite rule has been observed in their shafts, which are made narrower at the bottom than at the top. . . The proportion in which the diminution at the top of the columns of the two former (Indian and Græco-Roman) is made seems to have been regulated by the same principle, though not by the same rule. The general rule adopted by the Hindu architects in this respect is that the thickness at the bottom, being divided into as many parts as there are diameters in the whole height of the column, one of these parts is invariably diminished at the top; but in the Grecian and Roman architecture, the diameter of the upper part of the shaft, in a column of fifteen feet in height, is made one-sixth less than its thickness at the base; and in a column of fifty feet, the diminution is one-eighth. The higher the columns are, the less they diminish, because the apparent diminution of the diameter in columns of the same proportion is always greater according to their height, and this principle is supposed to have been discovered with greater scientific skill, and is adduced as one of the proofs of the highly refined taste of the Greeks: but we observe that precepts derived from the same principle have been taught and practised in India from time immemorial.”