CHAPTER VII
THE SIVA AND VISHNU-SIVA TEMPLE
In the last chapter we have tried to trace the evolution of the Indian sikhara chapel back to the patriarchal times when the Kshatriya chieftain officiated as high priest at the Aryan tribal sacrifices, and the Kshatriya householder had no need of a Brahman to direct the worship of his lares et penates. We have also seen how the memorial chapel of the dead Aryan chieftain was appropriated to Buddhist worship, and used as the Assembly-hall of the Sangha. It remains now to explain the subsequent evolution of the stūpa shrine in Hindu temple architecture.
Besides the Jain and Buddhist there was another sect, that of the Saivas, whose doctrine was similarly pessimistic, whose ritual was associated with funeral ceremonies, and who looked for salvation in pursuing the path of knowledge (jnāna-marga) rather than the path of steadfast loyalty and devotion (bhakti-marga) or of duty (karma-marga), to which the Kshatriya warrior mostly inclined. Siva, the Lord of Death, the deity worshipped by the Saivas, was the apotheosis of the Brahman ascetic, who found the path of knowledge by mortification of the flesh and by meditation. The religious teaching of the Saivas differed from that of the Jains and Buddhists in being based upon the Vedas as divine revelation. The metaphysical specula-
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