Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c72.27

v2.c72.27

Now I must remember my gurus. Prof. Iyer had prescribed, for my Ph. D. Thesis, Bhoja's Samarāṅgaṇa-sūtradhāra, a voluminous work dealing practically with all the principal topics of this technical branch, the Vāstuśāstra, and that gave me a life's task, first a study of this work, now a critical and comparative survey of the whole field of this most technical branch of Indology—vide my Bhāratīya Vastu-śāstra series—about a fourteen-volume-project. I, therefore, express my profoundest gratitude to him. For devoting a greater attention (than originally planned out) to these iconographical studies, I am specially indebted to Prof. C. D. Chatterji, and this has brought for me a first distinction in the University of Lucknow—the award of the D. Litt. Degree, from the Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology—vide my Thesis on the subject and the very high opinions on the work by illustrious savants of India like Mahāmahopādhyāya Sri V. V. Mirāśi and Dr. J. N. Banerjea, to both of whom I must express my heart-felt gratitude for their very apt appreciation and future encouragement. To the latter I owe a special debt of gratitude for the ‘Foreword’ of the work. Sri T. Gopinath Rao, Dr. P. K. Acharya, Dr. Bhandarkar, Dr. Kane, Dr. J. N. Banerjea, Sri Brindavan Bhattacharya, Sri B. T. Bhattacharya and so many other noted indologists who preceded me on this (and allied) branch are my real gurus, but for whose monumental works, this comprehensive survey would not have been possible in such a short time. I, therefore, offer my sincerest obligations to them. I shall suitably remember my other benefactors in the first volume of this work when it sees the light of the day by that Sustaining Grace which is the Real Author of These Researches. Before I finish I must thank Pt. B. N. Jha, the Vice-Chancellor of Gorakhpur University, for his very high appreciation of my work and writing out a short introduction to my ‘Hindu Canons of Painting’, forming an integral part of this complete volume as published separately.