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.c49.35

v7.c49.35

The title would have been better ‘Hindu Architecture,’ since ‘Indian’ as now used, includes Muhammadan. Measurements are laid down for every detail both in architecture and sculpture so it is not to be wondered at that we find such sameness, stiffness and oft-repeated conventional forms in the old temples which are still standing, especially in mediaeval work. The advance of Islam gradually influenced later work and brought into it much that is not Hindu. Of civil buildings very few now remain, and it is on the ancient temples, with a few tanks and wells, that the student has to depend for his practical acquaintance with Hindu architecture. The ‘essence of measurement’ is brought out in all its scrupulous exactitude where every measurement in a building must be regulated upon one measure—that of the side of the shrine and nothing is left to the *salaṭ* to express his own individuality. And the measure of the side of the shrine depended upon the length of the blocks that could be obtained from the quarry, for the shaft of every pillar was always a single stone from the top of the base to the neck of the capital : it was never built, as a rule, of more than one stone.