Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.166

v2.c76.166

*Vaiṇika* can never be explained by taking stand on *Vīṇā* which may mean ‘lyre’ and thus can, in due course, lead one to ‘the lyrical.’ Similarly *Nāgara* cannot be explained by Vātsyāyana’s *Nāgaraka*. Even the Nagara style met with in architecture does not help us in this connection. *Satya* cannot be interpreted as a *Sāttvika* picture. One can as well derive it from *Sat* and say it is the picture of the Upaniṣadic Brahman. My impression on reading the *Viṣṇudharmottara* is that even to its author the exact import of these names was not clear. The text seems to have been written after a cut in the flow of tradition of the artists who were using these words as Paribhāṣās. Otherwise one would not, in differentiating types of pictures on the basis of prominent and noteworthy features, mix with these such trifling features as the ablong or square nature of the frame, as the author of the *Vi. Dha.* does. The names Vainika, Nāgara, etc. remind me of similar Paribhāṣās of the *Nāṭyaśāstra*, viz., Jarjara, Kaiśikī, etc. which even in Bharata’s text are explained very unsatisfactorily with the aid of grammar and verbal resemblances.