Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus c4.48

c4.48

spot on their legs and foreheads, with eyes resembling the petals of the lotus, are to be preferred. They should be decorated with fillets and the like, and their horns and hoofs with gold or silver rings. The *sthapati*, clad in fresh garments, and adorned with garlands of flowers, waits the auspicious moment to present his offerings to the deity, and then, guiding the oxen, draws the first furrow. After this, *sudras*,[^asterisk] hired for the purpose, complete the ploughing of the whole ground. A minuter description of the plough is contained in the first section of the *Cásyapa*, the insertion of which may not be irrelevant in this place, as affording some proof that, how rude soever this useful implement of the Hindú husbandmen of the present day may appear, it has been originally constructed on principles derived from no slight knowledge of mechanical laws. The author says, "the plough should be made from the wood of any species of milky trees, such as are used in sacrifices, and according to the prescribed form; let the beam be three *hastas* long, with a projection of seven *angulas* from the yoke, and its bottom six *angulas* broad, four thick, tapering gradually from the lower to the higher end, with a slight indenture about the middle. The inverted piece at the lower end of the stilt or handle should be nine *angulas* long, two broad, and one and a half thick. The mould-board should be twenty-four *angulas* long, and its height above the beam, five. Let a head be fashioned in the bosom of the mould-board, of fourteen *angulas* in length, and the remainder of the inverted piece may be said to be taken up by the hole in which the beam and the handle are joined together. Let the mould-board be six *angulas* broad and four thick, with a point shaped like a pin, and gradually diminished towards the front; three times five *angulas* are said to be the interval between the beam and the fore end of the mould-board, to which the coulter should be fixed. The yoke pole is equal in length to the beam, with holes at both ends, and a leathern strap attached to each, of two *hastas* in length, and of the thickness of the little finger."