Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.109

c14.109

Ritual is mainly domestic, and centred on the hearth, but there are various hymns appropriate for ploughing or for driving cattle to and from pasture, for marriages and for funerals. There is no evidence that temples were built, and the altar is nothing more elaborate than a pile of turf, but in the animal sacrifices that played an important part in Vedic ritual the post to which the beast was tied for sacrifice was set up with considerable ceremony, and there are references in one hymn (III, 8) to what seem to be smaller poles or stakes set up in lines. The sacrificial post (*yupa*) is addressed –