Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v1.c5.2

v1.c5.2

A study of Bhoja’s Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra—a treatise on the science of architecture was submitted as my Ph. D. thesis some six years back. I was very much encouraged by the glowing tributes to this thesis, being acclaimed as a pioneer work—vide the reports of the examiners, appended at the end of this introduction. I therefore, set for myself to extend the study from a single text to at least half a dozen representative texts like Viśvakarma-prakāśa, Aparājita-pṛcchā, Mānasāra, Mayamata and Śilparatna. Naturally this very ambitious undertaking needed some more concentrated time, the availability of which has been a very distant hope for the last so many years as I have been busy not only with my D. Litt. researches, but also with my research publications in Hindi as well, with the subsidies received from the U. P. Government. Meanwhile that illustrious sociologist economist and indologist Dr. R. K. Mukerjee, the then (1954–56) Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University, took great fancy in my theses on account of their high merit and higher tributes and recommended their publications to the U. G. C. which sanctioned a grant of Rs.6000 for the publication of my theses. Prof. Iyer the next Vice-Chancellor also agreed to recommend for some more help towards the completion of work. Hence a further subsidy of Rs. 4000 enabled me to undertake the publication of this Volume also. Both these Volumes in a way may be said to complete the grand edifice of Vāstu-śāstra, which is not only the science of architecture, engineering but also that of sculpture and painting. Accordingly all these three broad divisions of Vāstu Śāstra, namely Vāstu, Śilpa and Citra, have been surveyed in both these Volumes. The Vāstu i.e. architecture being the subject matter of the first Volume and Śilpa and Citra that of the second. Further again Vāstu in its wider application has at least five principal branches namely Engineering, Town-planning, Secular or Civil architecture (residential houses for common middle class people), Palace-architecture and Temple-architecture. It is in accordance with these broad topics of Vāstu Śāstra (in its narrower denotation and connotation) that this Volume has been divided into five principal parts namely Introductory, Town-planning, House-architecture, Palace Architecture and Temple-architecture.