(i) Viśvakarmā’s Vastuśāstra (Summary)

Viśvakarmā’s Works:

The text-books of Vāstuśāstra, the science of architecture, arc records of oral traditions and transmissions which go back to an undefined past and Viśvakarmā’s works fall in this category. There arc certain known texts such as Varāha-mihira’s Bṛhat-saṃhitā which was compiled not later than the sixth century A. D. and which avowedly refers to the works of the old masters and truly admits that it was but a brief account of the treatises by the master-architects like Maya, Viśvakarmā, Garga and Manu. We have already said something on ancient Ācāryas. We have also remarked that there arc several works going by the name of Viśvakarmā. Viśvakarma-prakāśa and Viśvakarma-śilpa are such works and a notice has already been taken of them—vide Dr. Acharya’s work (H.A.I.A.).

My surmise is: both these make up a complete treatise, the former dealing with mainly architecture and the latter with sculpture. Here a particular notice of a recently published work of Viśvakarmā, the Viśvakarma-Vāstuśāstra is called for. But before we take a detailed notice of the work, a note of warning may be sounded. The authentic date can not be warranted. Very few Sanskrit works can be regarded as datable works. Perhaps we never cared for historical chronology or sequence. A historical truth or a historic truth was all for us. Accordingly we are unable to fix its date. Every Sthapati could call himself a Viśvakarmā. An accredited mission of an accredited master becomes the property of the desciplcs as well. This is really very sublime. But in this age of rational and scientific approach, this is a great draw-back and we should admit it. It is nevertheless, a fact that all these treatises are but an authentic, unbroken and faithful transmission of our ancient lore. Hence these works arc our hand-books and guide-books to reconstruct our architectural and artistic traditions and to study and appreciate better our architectural heritage.

Viśvakarma-Vastuśāstra (Summary):

As already remarked that it is a recently published work, its recension is based on a manuscript available from the Sarasvati Mahal Library at Tanjorc and its credit of bringing to light goes to a team of savants and engineers of repute. My friend and colleague, at the Experts Committee for Engineering Terms, Government of India, Ministry of Education, New Delhi, Major N. B. Gadre, has the credit of preparing a synopsis of its concents and publishing it in his ‘Śilpasaṃsāra’, I am therefore taking this opportunity to use his synopsis in my own way after having gone through the text and prepared my own study.

The whole work consists of eighty seven chapters in. about 1800 verses i.e. more than three thousand five hundred lines. The following tabulation of the chapters and their subjects will give a bird’s eye view of the subject treated in this manual

1. Advent of Indra and other gods at Kailāśa and his prayer to Lord Siva and Nandi’s call of Viśvakarmā.

2. Viśvakarmā comes and prays to the Lord for the light of Architectural Lore, the Vāstuśāstraprakāśa and the Lord’s Benediction and Blessing, Thus obtained the science from the Lord, Viśvakarmā praises and unfolds the scope of the Śilpa.

3. It deals with orientation of the sites explaining the East-West-line and the extent of shadow on different seasons for different latitudes.

4. It deals with men and materials to be employed in Vāstu. The chief material being wood, it is going to the forests and bringing the timber for buildings from them. So the main topics of interest are undesirable timber trees, curing of trees felled for timber and lightning blast etc. Further useless timbers, due to milky sap such as Madhūka, Tiniśa etc. are also not suitable for horizontals or for carvings.

5. and 6. They deal with the Examination of the different kinds of lands, regions and soils and their selection. In the Second chapter (ie. the 6th one) levelling of site, placing of foundation box and details of articles in that box are also described apart from the traditional treatment of this topic as we find in the texts like the Samarāṅgaṇa and the Mānasāra.

7-10. The subject-matter of chapters 7 to 10 is very interesting from the standpoint of community planning—the planning of the villages and town-planning as well as the planning of forts and roads, streets, lanes and bylanes in all of them together with their measurements etc. Here as many as 12 types of villages, 5 types of ‘Kheṭādi’ the special rural habitations, 7 types of ‘Nigamādi’ nagarīs (ie. cities), 20 kinds of ‘Padmakādi’ nagaras (ie. towns) and 12 types of Durgas (the forts) have been described (cf. the 2nd part ‘Town-planning’ and the Vāstulakṣaṇas, the second ‘patala’ where all these individual types have been noticed).

Some remarks on the town-planning and the village-planning as prescribed by this text, however, may be made. It prescribes restrictions of population on village-site for avoiding spread of diseases due to over-crowding. It also suggests that the cost of a new town can not be wholly met by the king. The king is only to order and and distribute the sites. Is it not a community-planning of these days? Similarly the treatments like the gradation of towns and rampart arrangements, the location of government houses, the approaches and communications, inter-relation of roads, proportion between them, their width etc. arc also interesting. It also prescribes easy water facility on all roads The treatment of professionals residing in towns is also very interesting. Village-planning is very grand—cf. cosmopolitan population.

11. Tins chapter entitled ‘Deva-prāsādabhūmāna-kathana’ deals with the planning of Prāsāda, the Hindu temple with its garbhagṛha, the sacred chamber and other accessory and adjacent buildings together with the Prākāra etc.

12-13. Similar treatment is accorded to the palaces of kings (12), the latter is specifically dealing with the fortification of Royal Palaces. A particular notice is that regional variation of structural types arc recommended and planning of the Palace with all the required establishments and accessory buildings for residential and pleasure purposes is dwelt with at length.

14. The chapter is entitled ‘Bhavanalakṣaṇanirūpaṇa’ and it deals with ‘Bhavana’ in the sense of a gorgeous mansion, incidently referring to the different salient features of a Vimāna type, a Mālikā type and a Harmya type.

15. Expatiations of this chapter on ‘Pūrvabhavana’ is of special interest. It is a modern portico or Pratolī (‘Pauri‘in Bhāṣā) of the Samarāṅgaṇa with the difference that it is to take a shape of a pavilion or a śālā with a good number of pillars. Its main purpose is to add to the beauty of the building of a Prāsāda or Harmya and is also useful for parking of conveyances like Śibikā etc. Different varieties of Pūrvabhavana take different number of pillars—from four to sixteen.

16. This chapter with the heading ‘Nyāyaśālā-lakṣaṇa’ deals with Palace court, the Āsthānika which is twofold, Nyāyaśālā and Sabhā. The former again is twofold ‘Deśyā’ and ‘Paurā’ which may be explained as rural and urban law courts respectively. Details are to be seen in the body of the book ahead (cf. Palace-architecture). Particular mention may be made of the pillars which are the main architectural elements together with decorations and the scats, the Siṃhāsana, the royal seat and the seats for other degnitaries [dignitaries?] in them.

17. This is in continuation to the 16th, dwelling at length on the two mains types of courts, the urban and the rural—‘Paura-deśyasabhādi-kathana’—law courts.

18. This chapter on ‘treasury’—‘bhāṇḍāgāra’ may also be taken in continuation to the Palace-accessories. In the opening lines of the chapter, however, incidental expatiation on the Vāstuśāstrācāryas is worthy of our attention.

Here is mentioned a list of as many as eleven early authorities such as:—

1. Agastya,
2. Nandī,
3. Nārada,
4. Bṛhaspati,
5. Timyaloka,
6. Kāśyapa,
7. Lokadarśaka
8. Kātyāyana,
9. Mārīca,
10. Citratoyaka,
11. Pālakāpya,
12. Puṇḍarīka,
13. Dīrghadarśī,
14. Punarvasu and
15. Yogasāra.

In which the names like Timyaloka and Citratoyaka are not familiar and perhaps are not to be found in other sources like Matsyapurāṇa. Treasury, again, in the context of this treatise, is twofold Deśyā and Paurā like the rural and the urban law courts.

19. The Inner Chamber, the Antaḥ-pura in a Royal Palace has Found a separate treatment in this work. Side by side with this topic of the chapter a detailed expatiation on the manifold types of ‘Gavākṣas’ is attempted. These are to be laid in the pleasure pavilion of the inner chamber. The varieties of gavākṣas are taken up in the 3rd part—vide also the Vāstulakṣaṇas under the term.

20. Then follows the Arsenal, Āyudhaśāla, wherein the opening lines the presiding deities of [the following weapons are referred to]—

1. Para Śiva,
2. Hari,
3. Brahmā,
4. Varuṇa,
5. Marut,
6. Gandharvapati,
7. Arka,
8. Candramā,
9. Citrakārmuka Vainateya,
10. Nāgarāja,
11. Ketumālī,
12. Vaiśvānara and
13. Yama.

Further are mentioned the great sages like:

1. Vaśiṣṭha [Vasiṣṭha?],
2. Pulaha,
3. Kāśyapa,
4. Bhṛgunandana,
5. Mārīca,
6. Cyavana,
7. Kaṇva,
8. Viśvāmitra,
9. Nārada,
10. Vālakhilya—group (of Ṛṣis),
11. Lokadarśaka,
12. Dīrghadarśī,
13. Kundaromā,
14. Gālava,
15. Pañcavāraka,
16. Bhāradvāja,
17. Kṣatrapāla,
18. Keśika,
19. Madhusūdana,
20. Sudarśana and
21. Piṅga

Who obtained technique and training of the science of warfare from these gods and transmitted the same to the kings on the earth for their good and for the good of the humanity at large. This is an echo of the greater epic, the Mahābhārata (cf. Teaching of Yudhiṣṭhira by Munis). Further next are described the names of the manifold weapons and their daily worship by the king. Then are taken up the architectural details.

In the latter half of the chapter, Royal library—Pustakaśālā is taken up because for a king the Śāstra-śravaṇa is as essential as Khaḍgadhāraṇa. In the planning of an ancient Indian Library a structure like pavilion was essential for reciting the book.

21. It deals with the necessity of an inner-room or inner-chamber in practically all the superior types of residential houses.

22. A separate treatment to the Dining Hall has been accorded in this chapter in which the allotments of separate seats and the direction thereof, to the Yatis (begging food), the Pitṛs, the children, the ladies etc, are very interesting and it mirrors the prosperous and pious homes of the then India.

23. In this chapter the bed-room is described.

24. This chapter deals with ‘Vasantagṛha’—a pleasure-house specially suited to the Spring Season.

25. It deals with 12 types of doors. It also expatiates on their decorations.

26. It may be taken in continuation with the former as Toraṇa, the arch is intimately connected with the door and has been a very important architectural motif in Indian doors. The text however goes a good many steps further and enjoins its decoration on so many other articles of house-hold furniture and the component members of the house itself. Its varieties to be seen in the body of the book—cf. also Vāstulakṣaṇa.

27. Herein are described the various types of pedestals or socles of a structure.

28-32. In these chapters Gopuras of one to nine storeys arc described, a detailed notice of which has been taken in the Part dealing with Temple-architecture.

33-34. They deal with Vāpīs and Taḍāgas—the water reservoirs.

35-36. These chapters deal with ‘Maṇḍapa’—a family shrine in a royal palace (cf. the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra ‘Āyatanādhyāya’).

37. This chapter on ‘Mṛgaśāla [Mṛgaśālā?]’ is a unique contribution of this text on zoological gardens wherein wire-netting is prescribed for cages in these gardens.

38-39. These two chapters expatiate on Aśvaśālās and Gajaśālās—the accessory structures of a Royal palace. We will see that the treatment of Aśvaśāla in the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra is unique but uniqueness of this text is also there in one respect that it prescribes race-courses with sand-blindage and that the junctions of Provincial Highways are to be laid in the vicinity of such Race-courses and gardens.

40. This chapter on ‘Vidyāśālā’ is also unique that it gives a detailed account of school-architecture rarely to be found in other Śilpa-texts. Village-school building or city-school-ediñce or one to be located in residential house itself—all are referred to, but there is an explicit reference to only one style of school-architecture—the details will follow—vide Public buildings.

41. ‘Saṅkīrṇabhavana’, a special type of structure in the different styles—Palace-like gorgeous and simple one—both are described in this chapter.

42-43. The former expatiates on bunting-like ornamentations of buildings and other structures like stairs, lamp-posts, coaches, doors, seats, etc. etc. under the technical term of Patākā, the latter dwells at length on the technique of iron-work, the nails etc. what is termed ‘Pāribhadra’.

44-45. These chapters deal with the Assembly halls or more fittingly with the sitting halls, the modern Drawing rooms or Varandahs, which in a particular context of a palacial building will take a good many śālās interwoven to one another under the two separate headings of the Mahāśāla and Viśeṣaśālā, the latter being prescribed to be constructed in storys also.

46-48. These deal with three types of marriage-pavilions (Kalyāṇaśālā)—Mānuṣī, Gāndharvī and Daivī, along with their Vimānas and Gopuras in the different styles of architecture like Magadha, Pāñcāla, Kāliṅga etc.

49. It is a treat on Theatre, the Raṅgaśāla in which both Music-Hall and Dancing-Hall are to be laid in conjunction or otherwise. At the end of the chapter is a beautiful delineation upon the decorations like Maṇi-darpaṇas and Toraṇas and the images of gods and goddesses presiding over the fine arts.

50-52. The former deals with the palaces of ministers and princes, and the latter two expatiate on the residential houses of the four varṇas—Brāhmaṇas etc.

53. It describes doors with details of their joinery and decorations, the special feature being glazed doors.

54. It deals with the different types of stairs and their landings. Both straight and winding stair-cases are prescribed.

55-57. They are unique in describing the public places in a village (Ekaśāla), in a maṇḍala (Dviśāla) and in the capital (Bahuśāla) to be established by ruling chief for the tests in various arts and sciences. These may be called darbar-halls, where debates, Kavisammelanas, plays etc. etc. may be conveniently held.

58. It treats the pedestals—‘Vedikā, divine and human both i.e. those fit to be constructed in temples and those worthy of a human dwelling. As many as 13 kinds are enumerated- In the end Pīṭhikās the seats or legs of the pedestals, are taken up.

59. It is a treatment of the lamp-pot under its technical name of ‘Potikā’ in great details of its various shapes and ornamentations.

60. It expatiates on Catvara—the raised up platforms to be used as a sitting structure in sunshine, in moonlight or even in rains, in details of their planning, moulding-decorations and other allied matters like drainage etc. and devices for avoidance of rat-nuisance.

61. It deals with joinery, the Sandhikarma both in carpentry and masonry, to be noticed in its proper place.

63-66. The former deals with roofings of various sorts and their drainage etc. under its technical name of ‘Āvaraṇa’ and the latter with ‘Lūpā’ a technique of mouldings and decorations (including ivory decorations) on the various members of buildings and articles of furniture. It is explained as ‘kṣudra-kriyā-paṭṭikā’.

64. It is a masterpiece on pillars—as many as 12 kinds with their components, mouldings and decorations etc. the details may be looked in the body of the book.

66-66. The former is an expatiation on granary and the latter on the cow-shed, the gośālā. It enjoins not more than two doors in granaries and also prescribes loading and unloading platforms to some granaries.

67. It deals with the main entrance gates of the villages, towns and forts.

68-70. They are unique in describing the roads and the public places on them, the Mārgaśālas with the fullest paraphernalia of equipment. For hill-roads it prescribes inclined carriage-ways for hill-stations along with the provision of resting places and safe parapets. Other details may be looked in the book.

71. Special buildings, the Viśeṣabhaumas, are the subject-matter of this chapter. These are grand edifices in capital city.

72-76. Now begin Temples and their architecture—the main shrine and the accessories—the Prāsāda, the Garbhagṛha and the Maṇḍapas, Vimānas and Prākāras etc. to be noticed in details in' the body of the book—vide Pt. V.

77. It is on ‘Upapīṭhas’ to be constructed under all important members of a building—Vedikā, door, arch, pillar, wall—for giving strength to them.

78-84. These seven chapters are devoted to Iconography and a detailed notice may be avoided here as this volume restricts its treatment to only architectural matters. Iconography and sculpture is the subject-matter of Vol. II. For the sake of completeness, however, the following tabulation of the chapters will do:

Chapters — Subject-matter
sakalavidhadevapīṭhalakṣaṇakathanam — (73) On Pedestals;
sakalaberalakṣaṇakathanam — (79) On Images in general;
atha śivaberāṇāṃ bhedakramakathanam — (80) On Śaivā icons;
atha viṣṇuberāṇāṃ bhedakramakathanam — (81) On Vaiṣṇava icons;
atha lakṣmīgauryādiberalakṣaṇakathanam — (82) On Devī icons;
atha bhaktaberasthāpanakramakathanam (83) On Bhaktas;
atha kalpavṛkṣādivāhanalakṣaṇakramakathanam — (84) On Divine Vehicles.

85-87. In the end an expatiation on our ancient Doctrine of Pūrta—the Foundation and Dedication of Temples and the Installation of divine images in them is made in order to justify all this lore and training. After all Architecture and Iconography are only a means not an end in themselves, the end being Devapūjā.

Thus, “The whole treatise deals with “planning”, as such. Details of designs are usually excluded from the text although the commentator has added them in many places to explain the meaning. The general idea in the text is to deal with lay-outs, proportions and groupings, in general. Town-planning, Palaces, Assembly halls, and Temples, structures for special purposes, and roads with accessory buildings and bridges have been dealt with. Drainage of surface and sullage water, as well as water supply for habitation is also included. Some chapters deal with selection of site and fixation of the northline as well as with the collection and testing of materials; the different kinds of idols required in temples have also been dealt with at some length, but the main purpose of the book appears to be “planning” as mentioned above, and not to go into the details of designs at any great length. Theory of structures, or strength of materials, or specifications to guide dimension-details or workmanship, appear in many other treatises at greater length than here, but as far as planning is concerned, the present work appears to be of some specific authority.

A special feature which differentiates this work from many other Śilpa treatises in the Sanskrit language is the fact that the Paurānika, priestly, and astrological details have been reduced to the absolute minimum Thus excepting the first two chapters and the last three chapters the all other chapters namely 3 to 84 deal with the theory and practice of Engineer-Planning as such. There are almost no priestly or astrological interpolations as are usually found in other Śilpa Treatises”.

Thus it is evident that this text is a masterpiece of planning habitations and houses—community planning from ‘smallest hamlets to the biggest metropolis’, state buildings especially palaces which were practically the modern secretariats, embassies and assembly halls all together, and residential houses and religious buildings, the temples all have found an eloquent treatment,