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) v6.c37.16

v6.c37.16

Such exhortations naturally tempted the writer himself to make a trial, as no one else would be so anxious to see the actual result of his life-long researches. Thus at first a couple of tiny temples have been attempted with very great success. They are, however, erected in an out-of-the-way place, in his native village, Yajña-śāla, some five hundred miles east of Calcutta, in the Tippera District, East Bengal. One of these is a memorial Śiva temple on the cremation grounds of his parents. It faces south on the eastern bank of a tank, to the east of which, at a distance of some 400 yards, runs a nameless ancient river. This river rises from the mountains between Burma and India and falls into the Bay of Bengal, making a semi-circle of some two miles from north to south and a mile and a half towards the east from the temple. It is a very simple structure, 10 feet 6 inches long, 8 feet broad, and 12 feet high. It faces an eight feet high Nandi pillar and contains a phallus of Śiva, so carved by a sculptor in Benares as to symbolize the Ardha-Nārīśvara image. In a town it can be built at a cost of less than Rs. 500.