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.s25.31

v6.c41.s25.31

The admission made in this connexion by Kennedy is free and frank. ‘The pre-historic age in India is distinguished, not by periods of stone and copper and bronze, but by the spread of the Aryans, the consolidation of societies, and the elaboration of a cult. With the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. we reach the commencement of personal and dated history, and a great creative era—the age of Mahāvīra and of Buddha. But the material preceded the spiritual. The first stir of that new life arose from the contact with Western civilization, the breath of inspiration came from Babylon, and then from Persia. When the Greeks arrived, they found great and civilized peoples whose learning and whose capitals aroused their admiration. The records of that civilization were written on palm-leaves and on bark, or exhibited in brick and wood—things perishable, which have perished, and we are perforce reduced to search painfully among the flotsam and jetsam of time for any vestiges of the grandeur of antiquity.’