How did James Fergusson make a mistake in understanding the genre
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Despite being the author of some great works on the history of architecture, few people in Japan know the name of the British architectural historian James Fergusson (1808-86). Fergusson was writing on the history of world architecture no less than thirty years earlier than Banister Fletcher's famous "A History of Architecture"（*1） and he was compared to the ancient Roman auther architect Vitruvius in recognition of his deep thinking and prolific and popular work. （*2）
Heinrich Schliemann, an archaeologist who had excavated Troia, dedicated one of his principal books, the "Tiryns", to Fergusson. The RIBA (Royal Institute of British architects) awarded him a royal gold medal owing to his brilliant achievements concerning his research on the history of architecture.
In Japan, for the first educational teachings of architectural history in the Meiji era, at the architectural courses in the Great Institute of Technology, and in the Imperial University of Tokyo, it was his books that were used as textbooks. In the pre-World War II period, Hideto Kishida, the then professor of the Imperial University of Tokyo, heard from Chuta Ito, the first Japanese architectural historian, that 'the lectures of the history of architecture were by and large direct translations and instructions from Fergusson's book the "History of Architecture", 1874 ...' （*3） Most of the Japanese architects who grew up in the Meiji era must have been familiar with his name.
However, probably on account that none of his books were translated into Japanese, his name has almost sunk into oblivion, while Fletcher's "A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method"（*4） became widespread. In spite of Fergusson's great contribution to the history of architecture, scholars have hardly studied the development of his writings. It would be partly due to the difficulty of grasping the entire substance of his work because of the extremely wide range of his writings, and partly because his greatest achievement consisted of systematizing the history of Indian architecture, whereas the focus of study in Japan was on the West.
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James Fergusson
In Japan Chuta Ito in the Meiji era and Shun-ichi Amanuma in the Taisho era had been interested in Indian architecture and had actually traveled in India, but no later architectural historians followed them, leaving Indian architecture neglected. There were no scholars who specialized in Indian architecture; therefore the society of architectural history in Japan could not properly locate Fergusson in extent of the history of Indian and World architecture. Not surprisingly his name is not found in the Japanese "Grand Dictionary of Architecture and Construction". More recently, as the study of Asia has begun to thrive, at length greater attention has been paid to Fergusson.（*5）
The aim of this article is to make a general survey of Fergusson's pursuit of the history of Indian architecture. However, given that his full-length picture is not known I put aside examination of every detail in his works for the present, I am going to observe how he made his history of Indian architecture, in correlating with all his whole writings about world architecture.