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.c16.411

v2.c16.411

This seems to explain away the main objection. What is designated as the *Gupta style* points really to buildings of much earlier periods. By the time the Gupta dynasty was consolidated the methods and principles of architecture seemed to have considerably improved : the architect invented the use of domes and other ornaments over the 'flat roofs' copied in the earlier periods from the rock-hewn caves. In the Gupta period proper, as truly held by later scholars like Vincent Smith, "remarkable developments in the design of the Hindu temple were elaborated, which ultimately culminated in the marvellously ornate styles of the mediæval period, extending from the ninth to the end of the twelfth century." So the characteristics of the real Gupta buildings, notably those which existed under the Guptas and are discussed in the *Śilpa-Śāstrās*, would be different from those given by Cunningham. The buildings described in the *Mānasāra* would conform, we have seen, to the characteristics of the Indo-Aryan and Chālukya-Dravidian styles recorded from the existing examples by both Fergusson and Burgess. But none of these extant examples belonged to a period earlier than the sixth or seventh century A.D. These were, however, not the first of their class : buildings of this class must have existed long before the sixth or seventh century, because the extant examples themselves clearly show that they have passed through different stages in their development.