Book s name – Samarangana sutradhara of bhoj
Translater s name – Sudarshan kumar sharma
Sri bhojadeva was first and foremost a man of great learning, a versatile scholar, a polymath indeed, for he has been creadited with works in almost every branch of knowledge. According to Ajada who wrote a commentary named padakaprakasa on sarasvati kanthabharana, Bhoja wrote 84 works giving them names with his own titles and binds.
Of the various work ascribed to him, Samarangana sutradhara is a voluminous treatise, an architectural masterpiece, dealing with technical subjects such as town planning, house architecture, temple architecture and sculptural subjects like pratima Laksana, Iconography, Iconometry, Iconoplastic art together with mudras, the different hand poses and the poses of the body as well as the postures of legs. It deal with the canons of mechanical contrivances, the yantras.
Samarangana sutradhara is in eighty three chapters with chapter thirty one specializing in the mechanical contrivances and yantras, having verses 95-100 dealing with the construction of bird shaped aerial car and verses 101-107 dealing with the Robots meant to act as guards.
This is the first time that an English translation of this great architectural work has been attempted with various annotations and the complete original Sanskrit text. This is definitely a landmark in the field of ancient Indian architecture.
