Devta Murtiprakaranam tatha Rupmandanam

Author(s): Upendramohan Sankhyatirtha
Publisher: Metropolitan Printing and Publishing House Limited

Page 37

[ 25
]
it, a forgery. Whether the remnants of an old Arthasāstra have been preserved in the Sukranīti or not must be investigated first.' The Sukraniti in an older form may be anterior to the Matsya-P., which mentions Sukrācārya, as one of the eighteen authorities of architecture-Vastuśāstropadeśakas.73 The śukranīti deals with architecture and sculpture in chapter IV, sections 4 and 6. There are frequent and casual references to both these subjects in other portions of the treatise as well.74
Varāhamihira's Bịhatsamhita is one of the most important works of the Indian literature. It is a principal work on natural Astrology. As this subject is of importance in all departments of life, all the varied branches of the public and the private life have been treated in the work. Hence it partakes to some extent of an encyclopædic character and is concerned with numerous other arts and sciences'. 75
Thus the Byhatsamhitā, usually classed under the astronomical and astrological treatises, is but a semi-Purāņa, dealing, as it does, with heterogeneous subjects like the Purāņas themselves. ... In this treatise there are but five chapters devoted to both architecture and sculpture. But the súbjects have been treated with a master hand... Quite consistently with his sense of proportion Varāhamihira devotes only one chapter to sculpture, in which details of images are described in a scientific manner which is
the Sukraniti, B. K. Sarkar based The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology I, II (The Sacred Books of the Hindus, Allahabad)".
73. Matsya-Purānam, (Anandāśram Ed., 1907), chap. 252. See Note 25. supra.
74. P. K. Acharya : A Dictionary of Hindu Arch., p. 799 ; also see Sukranīti Text; and the Engl. Transl. by B. K. Sarkar.
75. M. Winternitz : Geschichte III, p. 567.
Brhatsamhitā :--Ed. by H. Kern (Bibliotheca Indica); Ed. by Mm. Sudhākara Dvivedin with the Commentary of Bhattotpala (Vizianagram Sanskrit Series); Transl. for the greater part by H. Kern. JRAS. (1870–75). Complete Translation by Chidambaram Iyer (Madura, 1884).
D-4