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.c16.359

v2.c16.359

The whole compound of a large building is divided into five courts³ around which the temples of attendant deities are built. Brahmā, Vishṇu and Śiva may individually possess attendant deities. There are, therefore, no reasons why the attendant deities of any one of the Triad should be specially treated, unless the author were closely in touch with the temples of any one group of the attendant deities, wherefrom his ideas and illustrations originated. In this connection the groups of eight, sixteen and thirty-two deities of the Vishnu family alone are illustrated. The ten incarnations of Vishṇu are also dealt with. But no mention is made of the attendant duties of Brahmā or Śiva.⁴ This omission is significant, all the more because the *Mānasāra* is avowedly a treatise on architecture. If the work had been compiled in a place where Śaivism or Brahmā worship was favoured, the temples of their attendant deities could not but have been described in this connection.