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.c16.2

v2.c16.2

As has already been pointed out in the Preface, the name Mānasāra is of ambiguous significance. It is, however, clear from the preceding chapters that the text bearing the title *Mānasāra* is a standard treatise on Indian Architecture. It is divided into seventy chapters each bearing a distinct title. In 1834 in his Essay on the architecture of the Hindus, Rām Rāz referred to the first few chapters of the *Mānasāra* from a single fragmentary manuscript to which he had access. Since then several manuscripts have been discovered; but owing to some serious difficulties stated in the Preface nobody had made any attemp to deal with this huge text in any way for a period of 80 years till the present writer undertook in 1914 to edit it for the first time. This, the first, edition is based on all the eleven available manuscripts which are written in five different scripts in a language branded as "barbarous Sanskrit." Figures, sketches, or illustrations of any kind are absolutely wanting in all these manuscripts.