Sanskrit Manuscripts : Rājavallabha, an unidentified work

Sūtradhāra Maṇḍana

Sanskrit Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> The <i>Rājavallabha</i> is an architectural treatise attributed to Sūtradhāra Maṇḍana, a <i>sūtradhāra</i>, or architect/engineer, who is said to have been employed by Rāṇā Kumbha, a 15th century ruler of Mewar. The text comprises fourteen chapters on various topics, including house and town planning, the design and construction of palaces, and astrological considerations and omens. In this manuscript, folios 7 through 10 and folio 14 are missing. Moreover, at the end of folio 15, which corresponds to the end of chapter four, the foliation jumps to 17, although no text seems to be missing from chapter 5. There is no colophon; in fact, at the end of the last chapter, five verses from a different text, <i>an unidentified work</i>, have been appended. The first line of this same text similarly appears at the end of a <i>Rājavallabha</i> manuscript in the NGMCP collection (<a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='http://catalogue.ngmcp.uni-hamburg.de/wiki/B_352-14_R%C4%81javallabhav%C4%81stu%C5%9B%C4%81stra'>B 352-14</a>), suggesting that there may be a tradition of transmitting these texts together. This unidentified text seems to describe some astrological features (<i>cakra</i>s) of the intermediate directions (southwest, northeast, etc.) as they relate to the layout of a dwelling. Moreover, five folios written in the same style have been inserted between folios 5 and 6 of the main text (See Or.102.2). These seem to deal with the <i>cakra</i>s of different celestial bodies. </p>