Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.122

v2.c76.122

**Origin**--This general scope of painting hinted at in the preceding lines compels us to say a few words on the origin of painting. I do not think that any particular factors gave rise to painting. Painting, being one of the fine arts and the cultivation of arts, being intimately associated with the culture and civilisation of a people, it must have origninated with the rise of human civilization itself. The secular origin of painting can be traced as far back as Vātsyāyana’s Kāma-sūtra which leads us to this inference (cf. pages 32, 44 Banaras edition.) that every cultured man had in his house a drawinwg board, and a vessel for holding brushes and other requisites of painting.