Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c72.12

v2.c72.12

We know that the religious life of Hindus has had many transformations. The key-note of this religious life in India has been the quest of the object beyond this perceptible world. The life Divine, has always captured the life worldly. In the Ṛgvedic times the centre of the quest was manifold objects of natural phenomena, conceived as gods and goddesses, having their threefold divisions, those belonging to earth, midair and the sky. The cult of prayer (singing hymns of the Ṛgveda) was the first attempt to win over these divinities. Later on, the cult of sacrifice was in vogue (cf. Yajus-Saṃhitā, Brāhmaṇas and Kalpa-sūtras). Still later, the paraphernalia of sacrifice, the complicated ritual requiring manifold articles and involving a good deal of expenditure, both monetary and temporal, could not last long. Hence centre shifted from the extrenal quest to the Internal Ātman. This is what we learn from the Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads.