Book Reviews 185 Indo-Iranian Journal © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15728536-06202006 Libbie Mills, Temple Design in Six Early Śaiva Scriptures. Critical Edition and Trans- lation of the prāsādalakṣaṇa-portions of the Bṛhatkālottara, Devyāmata, Kiraṇa, Mohacūrottara, Mayasaṃgraha & Piṅgalāmata [Collection Indologie 138]. Pondicherry: IF P/EFEO, 2019. 665 pp. ISBN: 978-81-84-70228-6 / 978-28-55-39233-2. 1500 Rs. / € 65. The study of Śaiva texts on architecture and building practices has long been dependent on treatises and scriptures composed in the Tamil-speaking South, which do not go back before the second millennium of the common era and represent a specific South Indian cultural formation. Highly influential in this regard has been Gopinath Rao’s ground-breaking Elements of Hindu Iconogra- phy (1914–1916), which drew upon several such South Indian Āgamic scriptures for its descriptions, and continues to be influential on the work of art histori- ans to the present day. Recent decades have seen major progress in the study of Śaiva Siddhānta, whereby we can now distinguish between post-twelfth- century Tamil Śaiva Siddhānta on the one hand and an earlier, pan-Indian Śaiva Siddhānta on the other. The present work makes available, for the first time, the prescriptive portions on temple construction from six pre-twelfth century Śaiva scriptures, five of which are Śaiva Siddhānta and one of which— the Piṅgalāmata—has a more mixed character. The core of the book consists of the editions and translations of six selected text portions on prāsādalakṣaṇa (characteristics of temples). They give “the procedures for the design and construction of temples, from choice and prepa- ration of the site, through details of form and proportion, to consecration of the construction” and represent “the earliest treatments of building practise in Śaiva literature” (p. 15). The editions and translations, covering 464 pages in total, are presented side by side on opposing pages, making it easy to nav- igate between the Sanskrit text and the accompanying English translation. The majority of the manuscripts used come from the Kathmandu valley and go back to the tenth to the thirteenth century. Each text is preceded by a list of manuscripts used, a hypothesis (where possible) of a stemma of the manuscripts, and an overview of contents of the selected portions. The texts are presented in the following order: Bṛhatkālottara, Devyāmata, Kiraṇa, Moha- cūrottara, Mayasaṃgraha (with its commentary Bhāvacūḍāmaṇi), Piṅga- lāmata. The reasons for following this order are not specified; given that there are clear indications for the relative antiquity of the Devyāmata and the Kiraṇa in comparison to the Bṛhatkālottara (see below), it would have been more log- ical to start with the Devyāmata. Perhaps the Bṛhatkālottara has been given primacy because it gives more elaborate descriptions, thus giving the reader a better understanding of the system that runs through all six texts.