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.s6.34

v6.c40.s6.34

The Rai Bahadur has taken pains to quote passages from the later Vedic literature also, comprising the *Yajur-veda*, the *Brāhmaṇas*, together with *Āraṇyakas*, the *Śrauta* and *Gṛihya Sūtras*, and the subsidiary works, as Yāska's *Nirukta*, Śaunaka's *Bṛihaddevatā*, and Pāṇini's grammar, to show that the Paṇis, the inhabitants of Ānarta, Aṅga, Surāshṭra, Deccan, Sind, also Gāndhāras, Sauvīras, Kāraskaras, Kaliṅgas, Vaṅgas, Puṇḍras, Keralas, Karkoṭas, Vīrakas, Bāhīkas, Madras, Prasthalas, Vaśātis, Khaśas and others were treated by the Āryas as Nīchyas (low-born) or Apāchyas (ill-mannered?). He has also endeavoured to show that, while the Āryas disposed of their dead by burning, these peoples adopted both cremation and burial.² But these data would hardly justify the inference that 'the Ārya conquerors were inferior in material culture,'³ to the 'civilized aboriginal neighbours living in towns and fighting from within strongholds.'⁴ Although Indra is called Purohā or Purandara (sacker of cities), and the Aryan conquerors might have ‘either destroyed the cities or allowed them to fall into ruin,’¹ there is, however, nothing to show that the former were inferior to the latter in the art of town planning and building fortified cities. In fact, the Rai Bahadur himself asks his readers to shake off the bias relating to the absence of towns in the Ṛig-vedic period. Thus, if there were towns like Mohenjo-daro, and if the Aryans themselves were living in extensive (*śatabhuji* or hundred winged) *pur* (town) made of copper or iron (*Ṛig-veda*, 7, 15, 4), it will be curious to think that the composers of Vedic hymns, the first effort of human beings to express thoughts in such language of grammar and metres, if not of some scripts also, were inferior to the ‘cultured aboriginals’ in matter of house-building. If proper excavations could be made even the obstinate archaeologist might explore better types of cities of the Vedic Aryans, of which the literary description has been declared to be poetic exaggeration. In utter confusion the archaeologist assumes that ‘the Ṛig-vedic Āryas reached the lower course of the Parushṇī long after the disappearance of the folk that built the ancient city of Harappa and when that city was already in ruins.’²