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) v7.c47.7288

v7.c47.7288

The myth of Promotheus appears to have originated from *Pramantha* or lance. The invention of fire-drill marks an epoch in human history, Till then there was hardly much difference between men and beasts. For in the palæolithic or old stone age, men could use for defence and offence only the implements of wood, bone or stone, rude in form and entirely devoid of skilled workmanship. In the new stone age, however, higher type of implements came into use. Men then developed the intelligence and skill to grind and polish the rude instruments of earlier age in order to make more effective use of them. The neolithic men were not, like their Palæolithic fore-fathers, ignorant of the use of fire and the potter’s art. They could then cook meat and fish. They could make with hand pottery which was later turned on wheel. They honoured their dead parents and relations by elaborate tombs frequently built of massive stones. This sort of ancestral worship was the beginning of the belief and faith in a. Creator or the God, who is the ultimate father of all beings. Thus if the svastika symbol be ascribed to the period when the production and use of fire became known to humanity it would claim a very great antiquity so far as India is concerned. For the discoveries at Mahenjo-Daro show unmistakably that at 3000 B. C. Indians not only knew the use of all metals including gold but culturally made an all-round progress, and this Mahenjo-Daro period must be at least 2000 years later than the new stone age when the production and use of fire became known to them.