What did temples look like in ancient times?

[SKR108]

Namaskara

If current temple construction is based on agamas which are classified as "non-vedic,' then what did temples look like in ancient days? I'm talking about time periods when the Mahabharatha and Ramayana were supposed to have taken place.

Also, if Ganesha is pretty much a "newer" deity in comparison to the vedic dieties, what legitimacy does he have within the vedic pantheon and how did that come about? I don't mean to be offensive I am just genuinely curious. Nowadays Ganesha is worshiped/invoked before every religious ritual as a general rule but how were they doing it before he came to prominence?

thanks.

[Ram11]

Namaskara

If current temple construction is based on agamas which are classified as "non-vedic,' then what did temples look like in ancient days? I'm talking about time periods when the Mahabharatha and Ramayana were supposed to have taken place.

thanks.

Namaste,

Agamas are not non-vedic,they are extensions(say,addendum) of the Vedas as they accept the authority of the Vedas but propound a different mode of worship.Also,the Agamic Devatas are the same Vedic Devatas.:)

From whatever I read,ancient temples were probably made up of brick or wood.And, were unlike later day stone based temples that are durable.Or the same temples were renovated and refurbished with stone.

[Sudas Paijavana]

Namaskara

If current temple construction is based on agamas which are classified as "non-vedic,' then what did temples look like in ancient days? I'm talking about time periods when the Mahabharatha and Ramayana were supposed to have taken place.

Also, if Ganesha is pretty much a "newer" deity in comparison to the vedic dieties, what legitimacy does he have within the vedic pantheon and how did that come about? I don't mean to be offensive I am just genuinely curious. Nowadays Ganesha is worshiped/invoked before every religious ritual as a general rule but how were they doing it before he came to prominence?

thanks.

Namaste,

What constitutes as "Vedic" and "non-Vedic", these are unnecessarily arbitrary classifications. If you are not of the karmakanda, then there is no need to worry about what the brahmana-s entail. It's simple as that. Not to mention the fact that the Veda-s aren't even scripture---they are Shabda. Such textualistic impositions resonate back to the Colonial Era (I'd recommend reading Subject Lessons by Sanjay Seth; and The Heathen in His Blindness by Balagangadhara). This urging need to be a part of "authentic" away from "the newly conceived, less legitimate" is an after affect of those very impositions.

By the way, no conscious Hindu holds the agama-s as non-Vedic. Lol. Where do you get this junk from? "Agama-s are non-Vedic". Lmao. The agama-s are one of the most organized texts in all of Hindudom. They abide by one thing, and one thing only: tradition. And tradition, dear OP, is what qualifies as "Vedic". Trust me, I know. I used to hold such warped thoughts myself: this is Vedic, that is not Vedic. Blah blah blah.

Dharma is too darn wide to be restricted to two binary views---views that were arbitrarily constructed and then imposed upon certain peoples and their thought patterns that had no way to compute them in their epistemic and ontological realities.

Either way, to "academically" answer your question: Temples have largely stayed the same. And bhakti wasn't as prominent back then as it is now, so Hindus did a lot of yajna-centric rituals during those times. Oh, and I'm also supposed to tell you, "academically", that Ganesh may have apparently been a cult-deity only recently placed on a higher footing. And obviously, this is all speculative conjecture---the very same conjecture that "theorizes" that all of Bharat was Vedic even though that which is "Vedic" has largely been of the fringe, confined to only a few (as it was meant to be).

[SKR108]

thanks for the responses, and yes my question was in fact based on the "academic" definition of agamas and their supposedly being "non vedic" in origin.