The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c27.s1.6

v1.c27.s1.6

In the Rigveda and in the later period alike the cult of the gods is marked by the absence of any temple or house of the god, even of the simplest kind. The nearest approach to such a conception is perhaps the fires of the Sabhā and the Āvasatha which in the Sūtras are mentioned as to be kept up by kings;¹ but in this we have merely an occasional use, and the Vedic ritual has nothing similar to the tending of a perpetual fire by Vestal Virgins in the house of the king as at Rome.² There is no public cult, merely the carrying out of offerings for princes and other men wealthy enough to employ professional priests, and the performance of a much simpler cult by the householder himself. The essential form of the sacrifice is one which can be carried out under these circumstances, and it reduces itself to the invitation of the god to come to the place of offering, and to partake of the food and drink provided for him. The gifts of costly jewels or garments and of chariots or weapons or other accoutrements, are wanting in the ritual, partly no doubt from the absence of any place in which such jewels and other gifts might be kept, but more perhaps from the fact that the priests considered it in their own interest to secure that these things should be disposed of most wisely by bestowal upon them. In so highly developed a priestly atmosphere as that of the ritual it is at least reasonable to believe that gifts, which an earlier piety might have conveyed by fire to heaven, were converted to their own use by the vicegerents of the god on earth, who even in the Brāhmaṇas claim the title of god for themselves, while in the classical literature it is assumed by the king.