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.c16.147

v2.c16.147

There is the expedition of Alexander the Great to explain the Grecian influence on the Gāndhāra sculpture. The ‘Questions of Menander’ may perhaps stand for the title *Milinda-pañha*. There is again the *Romaka-siddhānta* to indicate the influence of the Roman astronomy upon the Indian *Jyotisha-śāstra* which had, however, already established itself as one of the six essential limbs of the Veda, the most ancient extant lore of human learning. Similarly the art of building, which is intimately connected with all living beings, was developed by the ancient Hindus at the early Vedic period. But the *Śilpa-śāstra*, which is but an analysis and commentary of the art, was necessarily evolved much later. There are reasons to think that the *Mānasāra* is not the first work in which the ‘essence of measurement and the system of proportions’ were codified in the form of *Śāstra*, though this may be the standard treatise.