Samarangana Sutradhara of Bhojadeva

Śri Bhojadeva was first and foremost a man of great learning, a versatile scholar, a polymath indeed, for he has been credited with works in almost every branch of knowledge. According to Ājada who wrote a commentary named Padakaprakāśa on Sarasvati Kanthābharaņa, Bhoja wrote 84 works giving them names with his own titles and binds.

Of the various works ascribed to him, Samarängana Sütradhāra is a voluminous treatise, an architectural masterpiece, dealing with technical subjects such as town planning, house architecture, temple architecture and sculptural subjects like Pratimä Lakşaņa, 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 deals with the canons of painting and devotes a big chapter to the art of mechanical contrivances, the yantras.

Samarangaņa Sütradhara is in eighty three chapters with chapter thirty one specialising in the mechanical contrivances and yantras, having verses 95-100 dealing with the construction of bird shaped aerial cars 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.