Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.186

v2.c76.186

The Vartikā preparation is an elobarate technique. Firstly it consists of procuring suitable clay (The S.S. 72. 1-3), the clay must be of a special quality collected from the Gulmāntara—the midst of the thickets, the lotus beds, the banks of a river, the caves of the mountains, the interiors of a vāpi or a forest, the roots of a tree, the corn fields, etc. Special care is to be taken that it is saltish, durable, smooth and whitish in colour. Secondly, the suitable clay collected from one of these places (though as per the first line of the 4th verse of Chapter 72, 'the different clays procured from the different places have successive merits'), should be ground enough into levigated powder (kalka). With it should be mixed a certain quantity of powdered rice and its proportions vary in various seasons—one-seventh in Summer, one-sixth in Autumn (Śīta or Śiśira), one-fifth in winter (Śarad) and one-fourth in rains. Thirdly, regarding its length, it should be noted, that it too varies with its uses: in apprenticeship the student-painter requires to mould it into only two aṅgulas of length; but if it is to be used in the delineations upon the Kutha and cloth it is three and four aṅgulas, respectively.