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Bṛhat Saṁhitā

Varāhamihira

Varāhamihira's 6th-century encyclopedia. We capture its Vāstu / architecture cluster — chapters 53–57 in M. R. Bhat's translation: 53 Architecture (Vāstuvidyā), 54 Exploration of Water Springs (Dakārgala), 55 Treatment of Trees (Vṛkṣāyurveda), 56 Description of Temples (Prāsāda-lakṣaṇa), 57 Preparation of Adamantine Glue (Vajralepa). This is the architecture cluster of an encyclopedic text — faithful coverage of these chapters, not a claim to cover the whole Saṁhitā.

  1. 53Architecture (Vāstuvidyā)The classical core of Vāstu in 125 verses: the Vāstu Puruṣa origin-myth, house dimensions by social class, construction (halls, doors, pillars, storeys), the named house-types, the 81-square Vāstu Puruṣa Maṇḍala and its 45 deities, the body-correspondence and the marmas, door placement, site testing, and the rituals of building.→
  2. 54Exploration of Water Springs (Dakārgala)Hydro-divination: the eight directional water-veins and their deities; long tree-by-tree tables giving, for each tree (with or without an ant-hill) and each direction, the depth and lateral distance to water and the exact strata (creatures, clays, stones) above it — for jungle, watery, and desert tracts; the Manu section on soils and stones that signal or withhold water; methods of breaking rock by fire and decoctions; pond and well construction, water purification, and the asterisms for sinking a well.→
  3. 55Treatment of Trees (Vṛkṣāyurveda)The arborist's chapter: preparing soil with sesamum green manure, which auspicious trees to plant near houses, the two grafting methods and their seasons, the sixteen moist-soil (anūpaja) trees, tree spacing, diagnosing and curing diseased trees, fertilizer recipes by weight, elaborate seed-treatments (including the wood-apple and Sebesten methods), and the lunar asterisms fit for planting.→
  4. 56Description of Temples (Prāsāda-lakṣaṇa)Why a temple gets its own chapter; the watered, gardened site fit for the gods; the temple's proportions (height double the width, sanctum half, the door and idol scaled from it); the worked example of the Meru type; and the twenty named temple types classified by shape, storey-count and width in cubits — Meru down to the dark four-sided, circular, sixteen- and eight-angled shrines.→
  5. 57Preparation of Adamantine Glue (Vajralepa)The closing chapter of the Vāstu cluster: four recipes for vajralepa — the 'adamantine glue/cement' that fixes idols and bonds the walls, windows and wells of temples and mansions — with their exact botanical-and-mineral ingredients, the boil-and-reduce method, and the metallic 'adamantine compound' of Maya.→