Who Wrote the Shilpa Shastra?

-Oishee Bose

The question of who wrote the Shilpa Shastra is often framed as a problem of authorship. In practice, however, it is far more revealing to treat it as a problem of knowledge itself: how it was produced, transmitted, fixed, and authorised in premodern South Asia. Once approached from this angle, the question quickly loses the simplicity it seems to promise. What emerges instead is a layered and complex knowledge shaped by oral practice and textual form, by artisanal labour and Brahmanical learning, and by the unequal power relations that governed who could speak, who had the authority to write and whose acknowledgement and validation mattered.

Unlike texts such as the Ramayana, Mahabharata, or the Dharmashastras, the Shilpa Shastra does not present itself as the work of a single author, nor does it claim to be the product of divine revelation. What we encounter instead is a dispersed body of writings and treatises like Mayamata, Manasara, Shilparatna, Aparajitaprccha, Vishvakarma Prakash, and others, which were produced across different regions and over long stretches of time. The absence of a historically acknowledged author is not simply a matter of lost attribution. It reflects the nature of the knowledge itself: cumulative, technical, and embedded in practice. To enquire who wrote these texts  would mean to ask whose knowledge they preserve, who had the means to render that knowledge into text, and what purposes such textualisation served, especially by reducing the fluidity of the knowledge.

What the Shilpa Shastra is Concerned with

At one level, the Shilpa Shastra consists of discussions related to technicalities of architecture, sculpture, town planning, iconography, metallurgy, carpentry, and systems of proportion. Yet, it would be misleading to describe these works as technical manuals alone. Instructions concerning materials, measurements, and construction are repeatedly framed through cosmology, ritual prescription, and astrology. The temple, for instance, is not treated as a functional structure of stone but as a cosmological body. Orientation is tied to celestial movements, measurements are linked to temporal cycles, structure is paralleled with human body (Vastu Purusha Mandala describe temple as the earthly manifestation of the metaphysical plan of Purusha, or the Cosmic Man) and the proportions of divine images are understood as reflections of cosmic order.

What complicates this picture is the unmistakably practical nature of much of the content. Detailed discussions of soil testing, stone quarrying, metal alloys, load-bearing capacity, and construction sequencing suggest knowledge that could have emerged from sustained engagement with materials. This is not speculative or symbolic knowledge alone; it is empirical, refined through repetition. It immediately raises an uncomfortable question: could such material have been produced by Brahmins alone (the ones who were traditionally associated with ritual and textual learning), without relying heavily on the expertise of craftsmen?

Traditional Attribution and the Problem of Single Authorship

Within Sanskritic tradition, the Shilpa Shastra is frequently attributed to Sage Kashyapa. He appears not as a craftsman but as a Rishi, a figure capable of receiving and ordering cosmic knowledge, and is responsible for passing on that knowledge. Architectural knowledge is often traced further back to Vishvakarma, the divine architect, whose wisdom is said to flow through a lineage of sages before reaching human practitioners.

Names such as Maya, Bhrigu, and Narada also recur. Maya, often identified as Mayasura, is remembered as a master architect, his name being preserved in the Mayamata. Bhrigu and Narada appear as mobile transmitters of specialised knowledge, moving between regions, courts, and traditions. Vishvakarma himself functions less as a historical individual than as an archetype, the divine source from whom all artisanal skill descends.

Such attributions follow a familiar Sanskritic logic. Knowledge gains legitimacy by being presented as ancient, sacred, and transmitted through exalted lineages rather than acknowledged as the outcome of human labour. Yet the internal character of the Shilpa Shastra corpus makes it difficult to take these attributions as literal authorship. The texts vary sharply by region in their materials, measurements, and construction techniques. They frequently offer alternative or contradictory prescriptions. Different chapters recommend different ratios, layouts, and ritual sequences. These are not the marks of a single authorial mind but of a tradition that absorbed, reorganised, and reworked knowledge over time.

The technical density of the texts strengthens this conclusion. Instructions regarding quarrying methods, structural stability, and metallurgical composition point to accumulated experience rather than singular revelation. The language of the texts suggests codification, an ordering of what already existed rather than invention. In this context, names such as Kashyapa or Vishvakarma function primarily as symbols of authority, not as historical authors in any modern sense.

Craftsmen, Literacy, and the Limits of Writing

Given the nature of the knowledge involved, it is difficult to deny the central role of craftsmen. The sthapatis, shilpins, sutradhāras, and metalworkers who built temples and images possessed the embodied knowledge on which these texts ultimately depend. Inscriptions and literary references occasionally describe master craftsmen as acharyas, transmitting their expertise through hereditary guilds and apprenticeship networks.

The problem, however, lies in literacy. Most craftsmen were not trained in Sanskrit, the language of the Shilpa Shastras. Manuscript production required time, patronage, and institutional support, resources which are more readily available to Brahmins than to artisans engaged in physically demanding labour.

This does not mean that craftsmen were excluded from the textual process. Literacy in pre-modern India existed in degrees, and functional literacy was present in various social contexts. Certain elite craftsmen, particularly sthapatis, occupied ambiguous positions, sometimes enjoying royal patronage and elevated ritual status. More importantly, technical knowledge could be explained, demonstrated, and dictated to scribes trained in Sanskrit composition. In this sense, craftsmen may not have been the writers of the texts but they were most certainly their primary intellectual source.

Orality, Codification, and Power

A further question remains: why write down any of this at all? Craft knowledge was traditionally transmitted orally, through long apprenticeships and closely guarded techniques. Writing such knowledge down risks fixing what was once adaptive and situational, reducing its mobility.

One explanation lies in changing political conditions. From the early medieval period onward, temple construction became deeply entangled with kingship and state formation. Temples were not merely religious structures; they were statements of authority and legitimacy. Standardisation became desirable. Codified norms allowed patrons and administrators to oversee construction, evaluate correctness, and reproduce symbolic forms across territories.

Seen in this light, the Shilpa Shastras function not only as instructional texts but as regulatory ones. They render artisanal knowledge legible to power.

Brahmanical Mediation and Its Consequences

If craftsmen generated the knowledge, Brahmins were likely responsible for its textual articulation. This does not imply that Brahmins invented the techniques described. Rather, they reframed them within Sanskritic epistemological and ritual frameworks.

The Shilpa Shastras do not overtly enforce varnashrama dharma in the manner of legal or ritual texts. Yet Brahmanical assumptions are woven into them. Temple construction is repeatedly linked to priestly supervision. Rituals such as prana pratishtha are treated as indispensable, and errors in measurement are framed as threats to cosmic order. Authority is further secured through narrative structures in which divine figures instruct sages, sages instruct kings, and kings patronise craftsmen. Even in technical domains, Brahmins appear as mediators between knowledge and legitimacy.

Motive, Ritualisation, and Appropriation

Why did Brahmins involve themselves so deeply in these texts? One answer lies in control over knowledge. By translating craft expertise into Sanskrit and classifying it as shastra, interpretive authority shifted toward those trained in textual learning.

Ritualisation reinforced this hierarchy. A craftsman might produce a technically flawless image, but without priestly intervention it remained inert. Artisanal labour was thus rendered dependent on ritual mediation. Craftsmen are praised and even divinised, yet their autonomy is carefully circumscribed. Their skill is acknowledged, but its meaning is controlled.

These hierarchies are not abstract. They are inscribed in form. Iconographic prescriptions encode gendered ideals of Brahmanical patriarchy. Spatial organisation within temples reproduces social exclusion. The garbhagriha remains inaccessible to the very artisans who constructed it. Architecture, as shaped by the Shilpa Shastras, does not merely reflect hierarchy; it helps to produce and reinforce it.

Collaboration, Unequal by Design

What emerges, finally, is neither a purely Brahmanical nor a purely artisanal tradition. The Shilpa Shastra is the product of collaboration, but one marked by inequality. Craftsmen supplied the knowledge; Brahmins supplied the textual form and ritual framing. The tensions within the texts, between precision and abstraction, reverence and exclusion, are the result of this uneven process.

Conclusion

To ask who wrote the Shilpa Shastra is ultimately to ask how authority over knowledge is claimed. The answer lies not in identifying a single author or caste, but in recognising a historical process through which lived expertise was transformed into textual authority.

The Shilpa Shastras are not only me monuments of stone and bronze but of negotiation between oral and written traditions, between labour and intellect, and between those who built and those who claimed the right to explain what was built.