The book is intended to provide sufficient reading for the student of architecture to be able to probe more detailed writings on the subject with sufficient confidence; to break down the cynicism of the practising modern Indian architect to the countrys architectural heritage and to arm the more inquisitively inclined tourist of India with sufficient background material to appreciate the essence of Indian architecture. The book is intended to provide sufficient reading for the student of architecture to be able to probe more detailed writings on the subject with sufficient confidence; to break down the cynicism of the practising modern Indian architect to the countrys architectural heritage and to arm the more inquisitively inclined tourist of India with sufficient background material to appreciate the essence of Indian architecture. To achieve the above it has been necessary to take some liberties from the classic way of writing a book on historical architecture. In this as far as possible In spite of the poor communication systems of the past every human action in one part of the world is somehow derived from another and interconnected with yet another. A study of history is meaningful only because it is so. The same principle is applicable to the history of architecture.
Satish Grover approaches the subject with a totally different background and perspective.He is an architect and his concern understandably is with architectural form and structure and the techniques of construction. He studies these monuments against the background of the political and social history of India the geophysical conditions the environmental factors conditioning building and also takes into account some geom-antic theories of the texts of architecture. Satish Grover has rendered yeomans service to an increasingly widening circle of discerning tourists students and the general reader. His book constitutes a useful guide to some of the basic problems of Buddhist and Hindu architecture and gives an insight as well as an understanding into the evolution of architectural design and formulae of this period. So much historic and academic knowhow has been poured into this mould that it is refreshing to find a readable book that is dedicated to both the scholar and the lay reader.