Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v1.c9.s3.2

v1.c9.s3.2

A special mention, in this connection, has to be made of the re-arrangement of the contents (chapter-wise) of the S. S. which I have made. It was necessitated, because the author being a king, the compilation and the arrangement might have been left to some of his assistants, or it might be a later mishap that the present arrangement is faulty and gives an impression that the work, especially the first 48 chapters of it, lack coherence, logical sequence and order (vide Dr. Acharya's notice of the S. S.—H. A. I. A. pp. 178-81). Hence an attempt at the re-arrangement of the chapters is made to rectify this defect—vide the chapter ‘The study of Hindu Science of Architecture.’ Thus in brief is indicated my humble attempt towards the great task of studying a technical work, making known to the public, its contributions in the realm of architecture. Whether I have been successful in interpretating the data faithfully and correctly or not, is for the scholars to judge. Fortunately many of them are living, and to them I owe a debt of gratitude, because, but for their pioneering work in this field, a scholar like myself with meagre resources could never have attempted the humble study of a great work. I am really very happy to remark that this study of Bhoja’s Samarāṅgaṇa-sūtradhāra has been acclaimed a pioneer work—vide the report of the examiners (extracts given in the Introduction).