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.c40.s1.45

v6.c40.s1.45

Sir John Marshall refers to a few more buildings of this type and comments, ‘whether these spacious and elaborate edifices were private houses or not, has yet to be determined. Quite conceivably,’ he asserts, ‘some of them were temples.’ In support of his assertion he refers to a foreign analogy. ‘In Mesopotamia the temples of the gods were to all intents and purposes copies of the royal palaces—dwellings where a god could eat, drink, and make merry like any mortal prince, and even be wedded on occasions to his priestess.’ But there is no need to go to Mesopotamia for such an analogy, because in India itself (of the later times) there are numerous instances of temples fully described in the *Śilpa-śāstras* like the *Mānasāra*, which possess as many as seven courts and look like gorgeous palaces. ‘The first, second, fifth, and sixth of these buildings,’ continues Marshall, ‘would have been specially appropriate for this purpose (as home for the gods), and it may be recalled,’ he further asserts, ‘that in one of them the excavators found a series of those peculiar ringstones which we have good reason for believing were objects of cult-worship.’²