Shilparatna Part 1

SR No.: 008431
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Shreekumar K Sabhatsav Shastri
Publisher: Shreekumar K Sabhatsav Shastri
Publication Year: 1922
Total Pages: 324
Language: Sanskrit
Classification: Book_Devnagari, Art, & Culture
File Size: 5 MB

Page 5

PREFACE.
THE Silparatna is divided into two parts:- the first part consisting 46 chapters deals with the construction of houses, villages and other allied subjects, while the second part contains 35 chapters and treats of iconography and kindred topics. The language employed in the work is neither elegant nor faultless but the treatment of the subjects is thorough and systematic. This is a rare work on Indian art, and no similar work has so far been publsihed anywhere else.
Two palm-leaf manuscripts of this work on Malayalam characters, one from the Palace Library and the other from the Manalikkara Mathom in South Travancore, were obtained. Both of them being full of errors, I searched for another manuscript that might prove useful for correcting the text, but could not, for a long time, find out one. The available manuscripts were, however, examined for the Press and also taken up for printing with the hope that the edition, though based on incorrect manuscripts, might in a way remove the want of materials now felt by the students of Indian arts.
When the first part was fully printed, M. Paramesvaran Namburipad of Kanippayyur, belonging to Kunnankulam in Cochin State, an expert in the ancient Silpa chanced to see me and informed me that he had in his possession a better copy of the Silparatna. He could not, however, comply with my request for a loan of his manuscript but was kind enough to compare his copy with the printed formes and send me the varient readings. Unfortunately even before the collation was finished, Death snatched him away and his disciple Mr. R. Sankara Varyar mpleted the work left unfinished by his teacher. Thus the varients from the Kanippayyur manuscript, designated, were obtained. Later on, another manuscript of the first part was procured from the Raja of Chirakkal, North Malabar, and the readings of this manuscript marked & were also taken. All the vari. ents of the manuscripts and are added as an appendix to the first part now issued. An edition of the second part based on all available manuscripts will be published before long.