Evolution of Temples in Tamil Nadu

The primitive Tamil was a believer in totems. Ancestral worship and totemic worship were inseparable and worship of the dead hero was the early phase of ancestor-worship. But these belong to a period very much anterior to the Sangam period. Later the ideas of Godhead and modes of worship had reached a mature stage with most of the Tamils. The aborigines believed in Gods who were supposed to reside in the hollow of trees. The snake which resided in such hollows was a special object of worship. The Kantu, a piece of planted log of wood was an object of worship.^[1] It served as God and it was preferably stationed in the shade of the banyan tree. The trees themselves, being totems developed into religious institutions and particular trees came to be associated with particular gods and their temples became local trees later.^[2]

The Sangam cult centres like Kottam, Koyil and Nagar had no institutional character and even in the transitional phase they are described as centers which people were advised to visit for the worship of a particular deity. The references in the late and post Sangam works to Brahmanical forms, in which bloody sacrifices of animals and birds were made belong to the transitional stage. The universalization of the Tinaii deities and the institutionalization of the cult centre as a temple with Brahmanical forms of worship as the chief focus achieved its fruition in the early medieval period that is, in a totally transformed socio-political context.^[3]