Chapter 39 - Entry into the Forest (Vanapraveśa)

[Note: This chapter corresponds to Chapter 16 of the original Samarāṅgaṇa-Sūtradhāra]

Wood was the earliest material employed not only in the architectural construction but in the fashioning of the sculptural objects like images of the gods and goddesses also. In Varāhmihira’s Bṛhatsaṃhitā, the Vanasaṃpraveśa-adhyāya (Vanapraveśa) is written in relation to the employment of wood in the art of image-making. Herein this text, the aim of this chapter is to bring material from the forest for the construction of the houses. Hence the selection of the material, the fitness of certain trees, together with other allied details, though identical in both the texts, have different purposes in hand.

The chapter opens with the auspicious dates and days when the entry into the forest for bringing wood for house-construction should be made; then lays down details regarding the ceremonies and rituals in connection with the selection of the trees. Then a list of trees which are to be avoided in the search for proper wood is given. Trees, which grow in towns, on cremation ground, villages, by the side of the roads, on the tanks, in the vicinity of temples and hermitages, fields, gardens, interiors of the frontirs, on unfit soils, like those having a taste bitter, saltish, etc. etc. and those covered with ant-hills, are not to be selected by the architect.

Now the trees having been selected, the operation of cutting with an axe consists of certain rites and rituals of the Śāntika, and offering (Bali) together with the worship of gods in the night, is also enjoined upon before cutting. The offerings are made to propitiate the trees and their presiding spirits with the mantras quoted in the text. In the cutting operation if some unfavourable signs, such as flowing of blood honey, milk and clarified butter are noticed, the trees should be deemed unfit for employment in construction and they bring misfortune. On the other hand, if during the operation a profusion of the blackish, sweetish, fragrant or kaṣāya liquid comes out, it is deemed fit. Similarly the falling of a tree in a particular direction say East, or North or its falling at a distance making sounds and producing air, is considered good, otherwise it is abandoned after offering Śāntika. Similarly the infant and old (Bāla and Vṛddha) trees are also to be avoided. The colour, the oil and the bark arc the criteria by which the age of the trees is ascertained. For example, the age of the Śāla tree is three hundred years. It can be used only when it attains the age of sixteen and upto one hundred fifty. Hence trees of unfit age should be abandoned and also those which are fit in age but otherwise unfit, should be abandoned. Next is given another list of fit and unfit trees. In the end, certain technicalities called the maṇḍalas observed during the cutting operations and indicative of the animals and insects underneath the trees are described.