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) v4.c29.s6.4

v4.c29.s6.4

The external evidence referring to the treatise and the author is also very meagre. The avowedly architectural compilations like the *Saṁgraha*⁴ referred to above, which have expressly quoted from the *Mānasāra*, are also of uncertain authors and dates. The reference of the *Agni-purāṇa*, of which also the date of compilation is not quite certain, is very ambiguous. It is stated therein that "above that should be raised a platform together with its neck either for the discharge of refuse *or* according to the *Mānasāra*" (not *Mānasāra*).¹ A similarly ambiguous reference is made to *Mānasarpa*, not *Mānasāra*, as an architect, in two late inscriptions.² The only other external reference to the name of Mānasāra in a clearer term is in the *Daśa-Kumāra-charita* of Daṇḍin of probably the sixth century A.D. Therein Mānasāra is repeatedly mentioned in unmistakable terms as the King of Mālava (Malwa) with whom was engaged in war King Rājahaṁsa of Magadha (Patna); the latter was the father of Rāja-vāhana, the chief of the ten princes or Daśa-Kumāra after whom the fiction is named.³