File:A folio with Harihara Shiva-Vishnu sketch from Samkrantiyajnavidhi manuscript, Sanskrit language, Nepali script.jpg

English: Vastu and Silpa sastras are treatises on architecture, arts and crafts. There are numerous such texts, but except for a few, most are lost to history or have only survived partially.

This is one side of a page from the Samkrantiyajnavidhi, a pre-18th century manuscript that was copied in the 19th-century. The language is Sanskrit, the script Nepali. A copy of this text is preserved in the British Library, item EAP790/1/116.

Sketches are uncommon in surviving Sanskrit manuscripts, but many Vastu sastra manuscripts include illustrations such as this. They are typically drawn on several palm-leaves or pages. This sketch shows HariHara, a Hindu fusion deity that is half Shiva (left, holding trisul) and half Vishnu (right, holding sankha). One half rests on Nandi, the other half rests of Garuda.

This is a photo of a 2-D artwork originally produced several centuries before the 18th-century CE, and copied in the 19th-century. Therefore Wikimedia Commons PD-Art licensing guidelines apply. Any rights I have as a photographer is herewith donated to wikimedia commons under CC0 license.