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.c49.71

v7.c49.71

The two books recently written under instructions from the Government of India on Hindu architecture and published by the Oxford University Press, ought to be valuable not only to the student of architecture, but also to the student of peoples of the world, for architecture expresses almost more than anything else the ideals and ideas a people hold at any given time. For the scholar these two books should be invaluable, as they help to elucidate in architectural terms details of the distant past, that have hitherto been clothed in mystery. The texts of the *Vāstu-śāstra* have, as the author states in his preface, been waiting for hundreds of years to be unearthed from manuscripts, which are quite inaccessible without the guidance of a special dictionary. This is the task to which the author set himself, and those who are competent to express an opinion agree that he has amply fulfilled his mission and has brought to light many new things hitherto unexplained in inscriptions and general literature.