The Development of Hindu Iconography c8.27.3

c8.27.3

but it is so diffuse that if we suppose the whole work to be written in a similar style it must considerably exceed the volume of *Mānasāra*, the largest at present of my collection".² A large volume of texts dealing with architecture and allied arts passing current in the name of Maya and edited by T. Ganapati Sastri in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series fully justifies the remarks made above. Many other texts like *Viśvakarmāvatāraśāstra* contain ample materials for the study of this subject, and Gopinath Rao rendered a first-rate service to all its students by partially editing relevant portions of them as appendices to his monumental work on Hindu Iconography, when many of them had not been published. Mention may be made here of many other *śilpa* works, most of which have not yet been edited, while others are known only from quotations in various known *śilpa* treatises. Acharya mentions *Sanatkumāra Vāstuśāstra*, which is known to exist in manuscripts mostly fragmentary. The author of this text owns his indebtedness to *Pūrvācāryas* like Candra, Yama, Bhṛgu, Aṅgiras, Vyāsa, Manu and others. A *Sārasvatīya-śilpaśāstra* is referred to in Aufrecht's *Catalogus Catalogorum* (Vol. I, p. 714).