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.c16.135

v2.c16.135

“It is worthy of remark,” says Vitruvius, “that the measures necessarily used in all buildings and other works, are derived from the members of the human body, as the digit, the palm, the foot, the cubit, and that these form a perfect number, called by the Greeks *Téleios*.” Phonetically this sounds like what the Indians call *Tālas*; and there is a similarity in meaning also¹. In the above quotation Vitruvius has briefly referred to only the eighth variety with which the male human figure is measured also by the Indian authorities. Details of the *tāla* measures given in the writer’s Dictionary need not be repeated here. It should also be noted that in both the authorities the face from the chin to the top of the forehead is taken as the standard of all the *tāla* measures which number ten in the *Mānasāra*.²