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.c16.292

v2.c16.292

The identification of Nāgara with Northern India needs, however, an explanation. It seems to have been never before used exclusively in that sense. Moreover, it is the name of an extensive division in Mysore, a part in Tanjore and a number of ancient villages in the Deccan¹. But it is found used more frequently as the name of villages, towns and rivers in Bengal, Bihar, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, Rajputana, the Punjab, and Gujarat². Nāgara is also the name of a portion of the *Skanda-Purāṇa*, of a sect of northern Brahmins, and of a script. The *Skanda-Purāṇa*, which to some scholars seems to have been named after Skanda-Gupta (455—480 A. D.), the seventh emperor of the early Gupta dynasty, contains a part called Nāgara-khaṇḍa. In this part of the *Skanda-Purāṇa* it is claimed that the Nāgara Brahmins are superior to all other Brahmins. It is held that they came over from the north and settled down in Gujarat at a place known as Nāgarānandana-pura. From these Nāgara Brahmins, it is said, came the use of the Nāgarī alphabet, which belongs exclusively to Northern India. Indeed it is very famous as the name of a script particularly of Northern India extending from Bihar on the east to the Punjab and Gujarat on the west, and from the foot of the Himalayas on the north to the Vindhya range on the south. This is the very tract which seems to have been covered by the Nāgara style about the time of the *Mānasāra*.