Origin of the South Indian Temple

Contents: 1.Introductory 2. The Sacred Tree 3. The Pre-historic graves  4. The Stone Ring or the Magic circle 5. The Toda and the Azarams and the Primitive temples  6. The Primitive temple and the temple of village Deity 7. The Origin of the Vimana  8. The Buddhist Origin of the Hindu temple 9. The Extent of the Buddhist indebtedness- The Stupa  10.The Chaitya  11. The Hindu temple and the Buddhist Temple  12. The Pallavas and the South Indian temple  13. The Dolmen temple and the Toda Boath  14. The Vimanas of Different Types  15. The Conclusion.
The Evolution of the South Indian temple is a complicated process; and a discussion of the subject must necessarily be complex. The course of the investigation seem to indicate that the temple is the result of a long process of development which spreads over several centuries. The temple, which is invariably associated with gods, had at one time; no connection with them.
The original religion of the Dravidians consisted of the worship of ancestral spirits and village gods. It was considerably modified by the contact of the Dravidians with the Aryans, As a result of Aryan invasions of South India, the Dravidian religion was completely Aryanised. The gods of the two races united together and formed a single hierarchy. The temples which were connected with the primitive Dravidian religion became the centres of the reformed religion. The Aryan gods became thence forward the principal residents of the Dravidian temples.
It must be remembered that the amalgamation of the two ancient types would not have taken place but for the presence of the Aryan element in the reformed Dravidian religion. The modern South Indian temple is thus seem to be the result of a long process of evolution.