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.s25.39

v6.c41.s25.39

‘The Babylonian *zigurats* represented exactly on a large scale the same idea of a mountain . . . the storied *vihāras* of India, with their retreating stages, are also imitation mountains. The artificial mountain of the Indians was necessarily a hollow shell, because all their constructions was of brick and wood. . . . But the towering *vihāra* became a very different structure from the solid stories of the Zigurat, for India has rarely borrowed anything which she has not altered in adapting it.’ This is a very convenient assumption. Kennedy himself admits that when he says, ‘but we may conjecture that *zigurat* and *vihāra* had a common origin,’ but he is generous to confess that ‘these speculations may be fanciful,’ and he ‘will not deny it.’¹