Manasara

The ''Mānasāra'', also known as ''Manasa'' or ''Manasara Shilpa Shastra'', is an ancient Sanskrit treatise on Indian architecture and design. Organized into 70 ''adhyayas'' (chapters) and 10,000 ''shlokas'' (verses), it is one of many Hindu texts on '' Shilpa Shastra'' – science of arts and crafts – that once existed in 1st-millennium CE. The ''Manasara'' is among the few on Hindu architecture whose complete manuscripts have survived into the modern age. It is a treatise that provides detailed guidelines on the building of Hindu temples, sculptures, houses, gardens, water tanks, laying out of towns and other structures.

Title

The word ''Manasara'' is a compound of Sanskrit ''māna'' (measurement) and ''sara'' (essence), meaning "essence of measurement" states P.K. Acharya – the scholar who discovered the complete manuscript (70 chapters) and was first to translate it into English in early 20th-century. While the text is now commonly referred as simply ''Manasara'', the Sanskrit manuscript title is ''Manasara Shilpa Shastra'' (मानसार शिल्पशस्त्र). Based on the early verses of the partial manuscript (58 chapters) studied in early 19th-century, Ram Raz suggested that the term "Manasara" is better rendered as "the standard measurement" or "the system of proportion". According to Bharne and Krusche, scholars who have written books on Hindu temple and architecture, the complete title ''Manasara Shilpa Shastra'' is best understood as "science of architecture where the essence of measurement is contained, the standard measurement is followed, or the system of proportions is embodied".

Manuscripts and date

Indian manuscripts that have survived into the modern age suggest that there once existed a large collection of treatises on architecture, design, arts and crafts. Many are referred and cited in surviving text but they are lost to history or yet to be discovered. Some have survived in portions, over hundred of which PK Acharya has listed in his ''Encyclopedia of Hindu Architecture''. The ''Manasara'' is one of the few that have survived in full and has been completely translated.

Like manuscripts on many notable subjects, the ''Manasara'' was believed to have been lost by the 19th-century. Fragments of 58 chapters of the ''Manasara'' manuscript in Sanskrit had been found in early 19th-century. Ram Raz had studied these, and published his summary notes in English with interpretations of implied architecture drawings for the western audience.

The British India official Austen Chamberlain had a keen interest in Indian heritage and his efforts to locate ancient Indian manuscripts in early 20th-century resulted in the discovery of 11 Sanskrit manuscripts of ''Manasara'' in five Indic scripts, in the archives of Hindu temples, only one of which was complete. This complete manuscript found in Tamil Nadu, along with the fragmentary manuscripts, were studied by the Sanskrit scholar Prasanna Acharya to create and publish a critical edition of ''Manasara'' manuscript along with a separate glossary of architectural terms. Few years later, in 1934, he published the English translation of the critical edition.

Acharya relied on manuscripts that had no ''bhasya'' (commentary) and drawings. However, with assistance of K.S. Siddhalinga Swamy – a traditional ''shilpin'' (artist and architect) in South Indian architectural traditions and S.C. Mukherji – another ''shilpin'' fluent in Sanskrit and trained in the North Indian traditions, Acharya combined the text with a study of major temples, and then published 121 drawings to go with his publications.

;Date and author
The Manasara is an ancient text, states Acharya, which was likely in its final form by about 700 CE, or by other estimates around the 5th-century CE. Tarapada Bhattacharya, a historian specializing in Indian arts and crafts, in his book published in 1963, states that the ''Manasara'' is best viewed as a "recension of recensions" text that organically evolved over the centuries. It is the work of no single author, and has layers of verses which are from the Gupta period and even more ancient. Other verses and some chapters were likely added to ''Manasara'' in later part of the 1st-millennium CE and the 11th-century CE as Hindu temples grew in their grandeur. Bhattacharya admits that this hypothesis can neither directly be disproved or proved, but submits that this can be inferred from the fact that the architectural teachings in ''Manasara'' borrow from and are identical or essentially similar to those found in Sanskrit Puranas, Agamas and ''Brihatsamhita'' that have been dated by scholars to about mid-1st millennium CE. It is likely, states Bhattacharya, that the complete surviving manuscript of ''Manasara'' is a recension produced in South India around or after the 11th-century based on major treatises that now exist only in fragments.

George Michell, an Indologist known for his many books on Hindu temples, art and architecture, dates the text to 7th to 8th-century CE.

Scope and contents

The ''Manasara'' is one of the texts in a collection called the Vaastu Shastras and Shilpa Shastras. These were design manuals covering the art and science of architecture, typically mixing form, function with Hindu symbolism. The earliest, archaic and distilled version of Hindu architecture principles are found in the ''Sthapatya Veda''. The ''Manasara'' and related texts – such as ''Mayamata, Brihatsamhita, Agamas, Casyapa, Vayghamasa, Sacaladhicara, Viswacarmiya, Sanatcamara, Vastumandana, Vastusastra, Vastusara, Ayatattva'' and others – cover the architectural aspects of a wide range of subjects: ornaments, furniture, vehicles (wagons, carts), gateways, water tanks, drains, cities, streets, homes, palaces, temples and others.

The ''Manasara'' consists of 10,000 verses in Sanskrit. These cover a range of architectural topics within the tradition of Hinduism.

Reception

Stein published the first review of Acharya's translation of the ''Manasara'' manuscript, remarking that the ''Manasara'' "seems to occupy the same importance to ''Shilpa'' (arts and crafts) like that of the ''Manusmriti'' to law" among the Hindus.O Stein (1935),''"Acharya P. K.: Architecture of Manasara (Book Review)'', Archiv Orientální; Praha, Volume 7, Issue 1, pp 249-250 Neither Ram Raz nor Acharya shared Stein's views on the ''Manasara''. They had interviewed numerous native temple architects and artisans, and based on these interviews they considered ''Manasara'' to be an important text but not the authority. The oral tradition of the native builders and portions of manuscripts the native architects possessed led both to the view that the architectural tradition in India relied on 32 ''mukhya'' (principal) and 32 ''upa'' (secondary) architectural texts, along with a different treatise they called the ''Sacaladhicara''. Both Raz and Acharya interpreted the ''Manasara'' in light of the fragmented ''Sacaladhicara'' treatise available to them.

According to George Michell, the ''Manasara'' is one of many building manuals with chapters important to Hindu temple construction history. These works discuss selection of building site, ground plan, merits of different construction materials, proportion between plans and elevation, and details of the reliefs and decorations seen in Hindu temples.

Contemporary reviewers state that the ''Manasara'' manuscript attests to the early advancements and literature on architecture in India. These guidelines such as measurements and ratios are precise, but the text leaves much room for diverse interpretations. The palm leaf manuscripts of ''Manasara'' do not have any drawings, unlike the current editions and English translations of ''Manasara'' that include drawings. According to Tillotson – a historian of Indian architecture, the ''Manasara'' "offers a programme for building, and a fairly thorough one at that, but like other text it remains a compilation of words, not of forms. It only tells, it cannot show."

According to Adam Hardy – an Indologist specializing in Hindu architecture and temples, the ''Manasara'' is a guide with prescriptions of ratios and rules for design and architecture, like other Vastu sastra texts that have survived. These prescriptions can be interpreted into a variety of drawings and forms after a careful study, but such studies and publications have been rare. Hardy and Salvini illustrate their view by first translating another vastu sastra text ''Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra'' into English, then deriving mathematical ratios and drawings from it in a manner similar to those of Ram Raz for ''Manasara''. After his study of ''Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra'', Hardy remarks the forms and drawings that result are quite similar to ''Manasara''. More specifically, he writes, "interestingly, this very form of all-the-way-down alignment f temple Vimanais present to a large degree in the interpretations of the ''Mānasāra''", as presented in Ram Raz's publication. The ''Manasara'' and other texts present the theory, the architect interprets and projects it into a tangible form following the training and field experience he must have received in the architectural traditions. Hardy shares the Tillotson view that some creative attempts with hybrid drawings by Acharya derived from ''Manasara'' do not reflect any real buildings from the past or early 20th-century.

The ''Manasara'' is the "best-known and possibly the most complete" treatise on Indian architecture and planning that has survived into the modern age, states Jennifer Howes. Its first complete manuscript was discovered in a temple in Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu) in early 20th-century, and as a result the early illustrations and translations give a distinct South Indian style and a context of Hindu temples. This history and context is perhaps why, states Howes, it is often incorrectly "billed as more relevant to studies of temple architecture than to architecture serving any other function". A more cohesive analysis of ''Manasara'' suggests it is a broader design and architecture treatise on a wide range of "man-made things".

Notes

References

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Hindu texts
Hindu architecture
Indian architectural history
Indian iconography
Architectural treatises