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Article ID: CBB817323845

From the Mythology of Vāstuśāstra to the Methodology of Vāstuvidyā (2016)

R. V. Achari (Author)

Indian Journal of History of Science
Volume: 51
Issue: 1
Pages: 156-166

URI: http://insa.nic.in/UI/journaldetails.aspx?AID=Mw==

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The article seeks to distinguish Vāstuvidyā (architecture) from Vāstu-Śāstra (socio-cultural normative of the building construction) for reasons of epistemology. The large number of monumental structures along the length and breadth of the country embody the art and science of indigenous architecture (Vāstu-vidyā). This seasoned architectural knowledge/skill, inherited, improved and sustained over centuries by its practitioner communities, is largely not enshrined in any of the Vāstu-Śāstra texts. Vāstu-Śāstra is a set of Sanskrit lyrics with the prescriptions on or about houses dealing with a variety of aspects from myth to belief to appeasing deities to divine reward so on and so forth. It is true that Vāstu-Śāstra is a term occurring in several Sanskrit texts of early India to mean Vāstu-vidyā or the building science pure and simple. Nevertheless, over the years the norms of vara/-jāti discrimination of the Dharmaśāstra-s entered the Vāstu-Śāstra and filled it with myths and bizarre beliefs, vitiating the embedded objective knowledge of house building, namely Vāstuvidyā. Over time, with the progress on technical, material and economo-social fronts, two events can be traced. One is the emergence of focused communities of workers and artisans who specialize in the vocations relating to building design, architecture and construction. The second significant event is that the insights and practices of this science of construction have been documented and frozen into textual canons. These two events do not occur in succession, but occur concurrently, and interact with each other. An attempt is made here to epistemologically distinguish Vāstu-vidyā, the building science from Vāstu-Śāstra that has degenerated into factoids.

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