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.c49.103

v7.c49.103

The other work which is somewhat less voluminous, is a Handbook of Indian Architecture, Sculpture and cognate Arts. It gives an account of the architecture of the Vedic, the Buddhist, and the classical periods of India up to the Muhammadan age. Such a work should be of great interest to those in this country, as well as in the East whose attention has been drawn to these subjects by the publication of the India Society and kindred bodies. There is quite a large constituency nowadays to which works of this character, dealing with the ancient arts of India, afford a real attraction. An interesting feature of Dr. Acharya’s present study is the comparison which he draws between the Indian standard work, *Mānasāra*, and the European standard work of the Roman architect, Vitruvius. The book might have made a more popular appeal if the text had been interspersed with a few illustrative re-constructions in plans or drawings, of the architectural features described. This, however, was not the purpose of the author. Rather it was to provide a fount of information from which future seekers may gain knowledge of an art which can never entirely lose its place in human records. What the learned world demands from India is certainty of data in these matters, and this has been undoubtedly supplied by Dr. Acharya’s researches. In these volumes, and in others that are still in the press, he has illumined a comparatively unknown branch of Sanskrit study, and the fruit of his long and arduous labours will assuredly be of abiding value to scholars everywhere.