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.c49.76

v7.c49.76

The Hindu *Śilpa-śāstra* or *Vāstu-śāstra* is a comprehensive but by no means unsystematic study. It deals with all kinds of buildings, town-planning, gardens, and market-places, ports and harbours, roads, bridges, gateways, etc., wells, tanks, trenches, drains, sewers, moats, walls, embankments, dams, railings, etc., furniture like bedsteads, couches, tables, chairs, baskets, cages, nests, mills, conveyances, lamps, etc., and even dresses and ornaments such as chains, crowns, headgear and foot- and arm-wear. The dominant topic, however, is architecture—the plan and erection of religious, residential and military edifices and their auxiliary members and component mouldings. The science which like the *Dharma-śāstra*, *Artha-śāstra* and *Kāma-śāstra*, professes to derive its first origins from Brahmā himself, developed in the course of centuries and reached its culmination about the sixth century A.D. in the great treatise called *Mānasāra* probably after the name of its author.