Chapter 2 - Buildings in General

The very title, the Samarāṅgaṇa-sūtradhāra is an index to its distinct place among the extant manuals of the science of architecture. All the manuals go by the name of the subject or the author.

The grand and eloquent title of the book—‘Samarāṅgaṇa Sūtradhāra’, literally means an “architect of human dwellings”:—

samyañci arāṇi samarāṇi (tathā bhūtāni) aṅgaṇāni (etādṛśāni bhavanāni śālabhavanānītyartha), athavā samarāṇi saṃyuktāni aṅgaṇāni, yeṣāṃ tāni, (bhavanānītyarthaḥ) teṣāṃ sūtradhāraḥ |

Thus the house architecture, the secular architecture as opposed to the devotional architecture has got a distinct place in this manual of architecture. A perusal of the extant Śilpa works like Mānasāra, and Mayamata, will convince the reader that buildings in general are described in one category alone. If there are some additional delineations, they are just like appendices to them differing only in degree and not in kind. Let us take for instance either Mānasāra or Mayamata (as the arrangement of the chapters and the subjects treated therein are more or less similar); we find that in Mānasāra all the 98 types of mansions, either may be taken as the residences of gods (the Mānasāra temples) or of men or the gorgeous mansions or princely palaces. Similar is the case of Mayamata or any treatise on the Vāstu Śāstra. In my opinion there is a complete absence of fundamental distinction to be made in the two realms of architectural planning belonging to two different and divergent sets of buildings—Mānava-Vāsa and Deva-Vāsa. In India, or for the matter of that, in any country, the shape, super-structure, decoration and ornamental mouldings and the like, together with the specific materials used and the planning of the accommodation etc. in buildings, like temples-churches, cathedrals, mosques or mausoleums are fundamentally different from the buildings to be used as residential houses. Naturally, therefore, while we have the grandest and largest of the Prāsādas in the monuments, the specimens of the secular buildings—the residences of the common run of men (barring of course the royal palaces) are hardly found. The thatched houses made of mud, bamboos and easily available materials from the local surroundings which have been our typical residential quarters from times immemorial, should ad so have some architectural traditions.

The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra’s classifications of the buildings are in keeping with the needs of not only the different strata of men but also the different orders of gods and goddesses. The residential houses for the ordinary run of men as well as those belonging to the middle classes and the higher classes of Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, Vaiśyas, and the priests, the commander and the like, all comprising both the nobility of the clan and the aristocracy of mind and spirit, are a distinct feature of Bhoja’s contribution to the science of architecture.

Samarāṅgaṇa’s classification of the houses may be grouped into the following three categories:—

1. Popular residential houses—Śāla-bhavanas.
2. Palaces of the kings—Rāja-Veśmas.
3. Temples—residences of gods, Prāsādas.

All the manuals other than Samarāṅgaṇa have confused the residences of men and the gods alike, this point needs elaboration. This kind of enumeration or classification of the buildings is not only unscientific but against the tradition. We know that in India lor a long time the stone architecture was a taboo for the residential houses of men. It was only for the gods that the stone could be used. That is why the earliest civil architecture is wooden architecture. Later on, as time passed, stone was permitted in the Prāsādas of kings and the other higher people and gradually it was adopted in the secular architecture also.

Moreover the science of architecture is a social science and it must take into its account the needs of society as a whole. Everyone can not be expected to build a lofty Harmya of high-domed Prāsāda. There must be ordinary houses, secular or popular houses, fit to be the residences of the great populace having ordinary means. Moreover, apart from its economic point, the point of position or station in life also is important. In the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra these different sets of buildings with their different locations are characteristic also of the materials to be used in them. The Śāla houses represent the wooden architecture. The time-honoured building material from hoary past has been the wood, hence its nomenclature Śālā (Śākhā, branch of the tree) is after the names of the parts of tree (cf. Kāṇḍa etc.). The ostentatious buildings of the Prāsādas represent the stone architecture in its zenith in the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra All these will be fully dealt with in their respective parts. Here it is enough to say that this demarcation of the buildings and their categories is a distinct original contribution of this work.

Out of its 83 chapters, there are about a dozen chapters exclusively devoted to House Architecture (see “The Reconstruction of the Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra Chap. V). It also devotes two separate chapters to the exposition of palace-architecture—the many-storeyed mansions and large edifices without storeys, serving all kinds of needs of a ruling monarch, the residential quarters (Nivāsabhavanāni, Ch. 30), the pleasure palaces (Vilāsa-bhavanāni, ibid) together with a vast paraphernalia of establishments—the court, the coronation-hall, the abodes of ministers, commanders, queens, princes, princesses and pleasure-gardens, orchards, etc. etc. (vide Ch. 15). Other buildings not falling in these three broad divisions of houses are: the assembly halls, the sheds and stables for elephants and horses. They are also dealt with in separate chapters (see “The Reconstruction of the Samarāṅgaṇa Sūtradhāra”).

Thus the picture of the various varieties of houses dealt with in this treatise emerges in the following tentative classification

1. Common residential houses—Śālā houses.

2. Uncommon houses—the houses of kings.

3. Special houses—Assembly Halls and Council Chambers.

4. Houses of animals—sheds and stables for cows, horses and elephants.

5. Prāsādas or temples may be classed as extra-ordinary houses as residences for Gods together with their accessory buildings for piety, ritual, shelter and the ceremonies of a religious nature—the Maṇḍapas and Jagatīs.

N.B.—All these five types of buildings may, however be, reduced to only three broad classifications as treated ahead—vide Pt. IV:—

1. Residential Houses,
2. Palaces and its accessory buildings and
3. The Public and State buildings.