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.s6.9

v4.c29.s6.9

This King Mānasāra is stated to be the father of one of the ten princes, who is, however, not even the principal character of the fiction. There are no doubt historical facts concealed in a fictitious work. But it is not easy to sift facts from fiction. Historical facts extricated from the complexities of such a fiction can hardly supply the necessary clue to the solution of the problem. Although some vague conclusion has been inferred from the circumstantial evidence about the period in which Daṇḍin, the author of the *Daśa-Kumāra-charita*, lived, no such vague idea even is available about the period or periods in which the more or less imaginary incidents described in the fiction might have taken place. Besides, it must be noted that King Mānasāra was not the hero nor even one of the chief characters of the fiction. This Mānasāra, the father of one of the ten princes who are the principal characters, is stated to have been engaged in a war with King Rājahaṁsa, the father of the chief prince, that is all. There is in the fiction practically no direct or indirect reference made as to the nature of interest which King Mānasāra might have been in the habit of taking in literary or artistic matters; it must, however, be admitted that there was no real occasion for such a reference, but the author, Daṇḍin, himself is held, in his recently discovered works, the *Avanti-Sundarī-Kathā* in prose and the *Avanti-Sundarī-Kathāsāra* in verse, to be well learned in architecture of royal and divine structure. In this connection another incident must be taken into consideration. Neither in the three styles mentioned in the treatise *Mānasāra* under three geographical names (Nāgara or northern, Vesara or eastern, and Drāviḍa or southern), nor in the ten types of the most gorgeous buildings bearing again geographical names and provincial divisions (Pāñchāla, Drāviḍa Madhyakānta, Kāliṅga, Virāṭa, Kerala, Vaṁśaka, Magadha, Janaka, and Sphurjaka)¹ is included Mālava, which was presumably the capital city and provincial kingdom of King Mānasāra of the fiction. In the circumstances it would be doubly unwarranted to take any decision as to the possibility or otherwise of King Mānasāra's direct patronage or indirect instrumentality in the production of the standard treatise on architecture which, as its title would seemingly indicate, might have been named after him.