CHAPTER VI
the sikhara temple, or king's tabernacle
The stūpa, as we have seen, was the monument of a dead king, and the cult of stūpa worship, which took the chief place in early Buddhist ritual, was no doubt connected with the shrāddha ceremonies of royalty. The stūpa-house, as a memorial chapel, must have had its counterpart in some kind of sacrificial structure, temporary or otherwise, where the living king assisted at the performance of religious rites.
Such were the tabernacles in which the fire and Soma rites of the Aryan tribes were performed in Vedic India. In them the celebrant, whether he were chieftain or high priest, sometimes remained for a whole year, so they must have been structures upon which the royal craftsmen bestowed religious care. In the Sathapatha Brahmana, a special form of tabernacle called the Āgnidrīya, or fire-house, is mentioned, which was quite distinct from the Āgni-sāla, the fire-hall of the Aryan household. It was in charge of a special fire-priest, the Āgnīdhra, and through the kindling of the fire it became the dwelling-place of the All-gods (Visve-devas).
The Vedic rites were therefore not independent of the builder's craft, as Fergusson and other writers have assumed. In later Vedic times the development of the Yoga cult would have made the building of a private
