The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c9.9

c9.9

There were three analogous stages in the evolution of Aryan religion and of Indian religious building. First, the personal religion of the Aryan, which was a direct appeal to the Deity, and needed no shrines except those which God Himself provided; next, his an inferior social position; they were perhaps originally only the attendants at tribal sacrifices who chanted the Vedic hymns and were charged with minor duties, such as the care of sacrificial vessels. But in course of time the increasing complication of sacrificial rites and the of placing it upon a wider social and spiritual basis—that of the *Sangha*, or community, instead of the household or tribe. Thus the simple shrine which served for the religious rites of the Indo-Aryan village grew into the cathedral church of the Buddhist Sangha.