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.c42.s1.89

v6.c42.s1.89

From the complete text it is now plain that architecture in the *Mānasāra* is taken in its widest sense and includes systems of measurement, selection of sites, town-planning, foundations, bricks, plinths, bases, pillars, entablatures, chariots, couches, thrones, crowns and personal ornaments, doors, windows, staircases, wells and drains and even balances and baskets and cages for birds and beasts. The carving and casting of images of deities, sages and donors and the making of cult objects occupy no fewer than twenty of the seventy chapters. That the *Mānasāra* is a practical work based on experience and actual measurement of the then existing architectural and sculptural objects can hardly be doubted, but mingled with the technical detail are many ritual rules and other extraneous matter, not however without considerable interest. Hindu fondness for classification is evidenced in the multiplicity of types, and we have thirty-two varieties of site-plans, fifty kinds of mouldings and sixty-four types of column bases and so on, until it becomes difficult to determine where reality ends. The importance of exact proportion and strict adherence to the rules annunciated is emphasized throughout the work, and this is based not only on aesthetic considerations, for a whole chapter is devoted to penalties arising from any deviation. For instance it is laid down that, ‘If the staircase be less or greater the master would certainly be crippled,’ and such might indeed happen from such a faulty construction; but it seems somewhat severe that ‘if the height of a pillar be lower or higher the family and race of the master will be exterminated.’ Light is thrown on the religious toleration of the age, for two chapters are devoted to rules for the making of Buddhist and Jain images.