Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c17.4

c17.4

Previously all shrines connected with the Brahmanical faith appear to have been of a very impermanent order. An ancient commentary, the *Satapatha Brahmana*, incidentally describing one of these before the Christian era, states that it comprised two sheds "formed of posts and beams covered with reeds and mats," thus seeming to imply that a very primitive shelter was all that custom ordained in the ceremonial usage of this belief. That such was the practice is shown by the bas-reliefs of Barhut and Sanchi, of the second and first centuries B.C., the fire altars and *naga* tabernacles of the non-Buddhists being either entirely uncovered or merely protected by temporary erections, from which it may be inferred that the service and ritual were ordinarily performed in the open air. (Plate XVIII). What may be the oldest known actual remains of a Brahmanical stone structure are the foundations of a Vishnu shrine at Besnagar (Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh), adjacent to the Heliodorus pillar, and therefore not likely to be later than the second century B.C. The form this building took is not clear. The reason for the almost complete absence of any stable religious edifice, is due to the particular character of the belief upto this period. Consisting mainly in the propitiation, by means of offerings on an altar, of certain abstract powers representing natural forces and phenomena whose presence was everywhere, under such conditions any kind of earthly abode would have been meaningless In the course of time, however, there grew up a desire for something more positive than spiritual essences, a need for some material interpretation of the religious ideal. And so by degrees there developed a demand for an embodiment of these impersonal powers, which, early in the Christian era crystallized, and, before the fourth century A D., the object of worship began to assume a visible form, usually a graven image.