Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus c4.6

c4.6

Many works of acknowledged antiquity attest the existence of a number of treatises on *Silpa Sástra*; and every artist proverbially knows that there have been thirty-two principal, and as many subordinate works on this subject. In a Tamil controversial work entitled *Iru-samaya-villacam*, or "the illustration of the two systems," (i. e. of *Vishnu* and *Siva*), supposed to have been written in the fifteenth century by a *Vaishnava*,ast in refutation of the doctrines of his opponents, or rather in commendation of his own, a work which is held in high estimation, especially among the *Vaishnavas* in Southern India, the author, in the course of his arguments to prove the supremacy of *Vishnu* over *Siva*, has been led incidentally to cite certain passages from the *Silpa Sástra*, which describe the sites to be assigned for the erection of temples for *Vishnu* and *Siva*: the former to be in the middle of the town or village, as the most acceptable place for a deity whose characteristic attributes are benignity, mercy, and preservation; and the latter without the village, as proper for one possessed of opposite qualities. This work recognizes a great number of the treatises abovementioned, and enumerates twenty-nine of them by their titles, concluding the list with the words “and others;” but which of these works it was that he consulted on the point of discussion, the author does not inform us : there is reason, however, to believe that many of them had been lost long prior to the period at which he wrote.