Yantras or Mechanical Contrivances in Ancient India c2.201

c2.201

More specific descriptions of the four types of *Dhārāgṛiha* now follow: The main speciality of the first, the *Pravarshaṇa*, the shower, is that it pours down water. Strong figures of three, four or seven men should be set up, with curved tubes; the whole mechanism is fitted with water which is poured out in different ways by these figures (142-46). Bhoja calls this shower-house a pseudo-cloud, *anukaraṇam ekam jalamucām* (148)—(Somadeva Sūri's commentator gives it the name *kṛitrima-megha-mandira*)—a boon in summer and a feast to the eyes. Kālidāsa's reference to the yantra-dhārā-gṛiha has already been noted but when he says in his *Meghasandeśa* I. 61 (*nesyanti tvām sura-yuvatayo yantra-dhārā-gṛihatvam*), that the celestial damsels on the Himālayas would scratch the cloud with their bangles and convert it into a yantra-dhārā-gṛiha, he seems to know also the name of this type called after the cloud.