Existence and Weyl's law for spherical cusp forms

Let G be a split adjoint semisimple group over Q and K a maximal compact subgroup of the real points G(R). We shall give a uniform, short and essentially elementary proof of the Weyl law for cusp forms on congruence quotients of G(R)/K. This proves a conjecture of Sarnak for Q-split groups, previously known only for the case of PGL(n). The key idea amounts to a new type of simple trace formula.