Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.74

v2.c76.74

It may be noted that in the Samarāṅgaṇa-sūtradhāra as I have criticised it at several places, the portion of the text on sculpture is neither exhaustive nor elaborate. That is, in the text we neither get a complete traditional account of images of the divinities and statues of great personages along with a detailed code of canons such as we find in Āgamic works and Śilpa-śāstras like Mānasāra, Śilparatna and works of Kaśyapa and Agastya, nor any code of metal-casting, the details of which are found in the contemporary anthology—Mānsollāsa of King Someśvara. Both these drawbacks have been fully compensated by its treatment of the painter’s masterpiece, the different kinds of paintings, both religious and secular. Hence I am content to take notice of the pictorial art of making images—both religious and secular—according to our treatise, which in accordance with the time-honoured tradition of the medieval art (*i. e.* latter part of the medieval renaissance), has devoted a good many chapters to the art of painting, which as I have hinted in the very first part of this study, forms a major contribution of this work on architecture. Moreover the architectural works belonging to both the schools as noticed in the Introductory part of this study do not contain any treatment of the topic of pictorial representation of the images of gods. The treatises like Śilparatna are comparatively very late, or rather modern. Among the pre-Samarāṅgaṇa treatises on architecture, there are however a few works which have dealt with this topic in detail. The first place must be assigned to Viṣṇudharmottara which gives a detailed account of the rules of painting and is of unique importance in this particular branch of art. It is a representative work of ancient Indian painting.