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.s25.277

v6.c41.s25.277

Thus the advent of the English in the eighteenth century could not destroy ‘the Indian domestic and religious architecture,’ even if they wanted to, because the domestic Hindu architecture of that time had already become largely muslimized. So far as Indian religious architecture, or the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples, and monuments of Muslim origin are concerned, no traces thereof would have been found by this time if the British conquerors, instead of neglecting, not to speak of destroying, had not made an active effort to preserve them. The Preservation of Ancient Monuments Act of 1904, initiated by an Englishman, Lord Curzon, may be cited as an undisputed evidence. This fact will contrast well with the similarly undisputed marks of deliberate destruction of Hindu monuments in several places in western, northern, eastern, and central India. Many readers may have seen the condition of Somanath temple in Gujarat, the back portion of the original temple of Viśvanath at Benares (the front portion whereof has been merged into a mosque), the chisel marks of destruction to remove the nose, nipple, and other pointed portions of sculptures at Ajanta, Ellora, and a hundred other places. Readers of history and Hindu culture, and of the Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit texts, are well aware that there would have been no traces of the manuscripts of the *Vedas*, the Buddhist and the Jain scriptures and canonical works, if, at the instance of the Indo-British Government, the early English, French, and German savants had not toiled, not only to preserve and publish them, but also to encourage and induce us to appreciate them. It was left for Sir Aurel Stein to discover and join together the full manuscripts of the Kashmir history, *Rāja-taraṅgiṇī*, from the three co-sharers of a Pandit in Kashmir, who had cut, breadthwise, the book of those manuscripts, written lengthwise on palm leaves, into three equal portions, along with other ancestral property. It was Böhtlingk and Roth who compiled the St. Petersburg Dictionary, of which Sir Monier William's and Apte's Sanskrit-English Dictionaries are but summaries, that have made the study of Sanskrit popular among most of the Indians themselves. The compiler of the Pali Dictionary was Childers, an Englishman. The writers of the histories of Indian literature are all Europeans. A retired British army officer, General Sir A. Cunningham, organized the archaeological researches in India, which alone rendered it possible to make excavations at many places like Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the treasures whereof have supplied materials to the ungenerous critic to refer to the antiquity of Hindu architecture. It was again the English who established research centres like the Asiatic Society in India and abroad, the modern schools, colleges, and universities, and introduced the system of sending abroad Indian students for special training in cultural, scientific, and technical subjects, including engineering and architecture.