The Mayamata contains all of Maya’s incredible wisdom about designing and building amazing structures on Earth (and even in heaven!). Chapters 1–10: Finding the perfect building site because land is considered the first vAstu or object. Over time, people have added new sections to the original text, as often happened with ancient manuscripts that were handwritten. But in ancient India, people held Nature sacred and wouldn’t have dared to mistreat the environment. Excerpted with permission from The Greatest Books of Ancient India: Incredible Ideas about Science, Music, Maths, Art and More, Pradeep Chakravarthy and R Thiagarajan, Hachette India.