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.c30.s1.388

v4.c30.s1.388

A later passage in the *Mānasāra* (Chapter IX, 422–442) supplies the required explanation as to why (i) the full details of the fourth and fifth plans and of the eighth and particularly the ninth one have been given and (ii) the details of the other plans, especially, of the last twenty-three rather twenty-two have been altogether left out. From this passage it is clear beyond doubt that (*a*) these thirty-two ground-plans are not intended to be independent and absolutely separate plans, but (*b*) within a plan of a larger number of plots, plans of smaller number of plots may be marked and referred to by the technical epithets of the latter, and that, therefore, the details of those plans which are not described may be found out by merely multiplying the plans of which full details are given. This would, further, explain why (i) the same number of twenty-five deities are allocated to the plan of sixteen plots (i.e. Mahāpīṭha) as well as to the plan of twenty-five plots (i.e. Upapīṭha), and (ii) the same number of forty-five deities are allocated to the plan of sixty-four plots (i.e. Chaṇḍita) and to the plan of eighty-one plots (i.e. Parama-śāyika).