Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c72.14

v2.c72.14

Despite a genuine effort on the part of the great thinkers of the past, however, a want was there. Both these institutions of complicated ritual and the philosophical or mystic meditation were not suited to the mass of huminity, the simple unsophisticated people, the ordinary run of men, forming the bulk of the population. Hence religious reform was undertaken and this could be accomplished only by a sage like Vyāsa, the celebrated author of Purāṇas. The Pūrāṇas gave the popular religion of Bhakti, the germs of which had already been there in that fountain head of Vedic lore itself (cf. Śvet. Up.).