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.c41.s25.271

v6.c41.s25.271

Although Muir criticizes⁵ these references ‘as exaggerated description of a royal residence such as the poet had seen,’ they may be taken to support the contention of ‘wonderfully magnificent structures going back to over 2000 years B.C.’ It can also be admitted that architecture, like carpentry, weaving, and such other practical arts, was ‘carried from generation to generation as a caste-craft,’ when so many other professions used to be associated with one’s birth. But such a condition of an art as disclosed by mere casual literary reference without any architectural details does not necessarily imply its merging capacity, which is really ensured by a settled, strong and ‘profoundly’ international government. The stale controversy, first between Fergusson and Rajendralal Mitra, and, subsequently, between Spooner and many modern scholars, has already been set at rest by the later archaeological finds and the discovery of architectural texts. No useful purpose will be served by re-examining the arguments so convincingly interpreted to explode the theory that whatever truly scientific and artistic architectural objects have been found in India must have been borrowed from abroad, though that source was unknown and unknowable. Hindu architecture does not seem to possess that capacity to merge in its fold whatever was introduced into India by the Persians in 500 B.C., and by the Turks, Moguls, and Pathans from A.D. 1000.