Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government c2.s1.22

c2.s1.22

As Hocart has remarked with respect to rites of royal installation, "The theory is that the King (1) dies, (2) is reborn, (3) as a god" (*Kingship*, 1927, p. 70). In this sequence, however, he was unable to recognize the "death" in the Indian sources, chiefly ŚB., although he recognized that all regeneration necessarily implies an antecedent death. As to this, it must be remembered that any initiatory rebirth, or indeed a birth of any kind, implies a previous death; for initiatory death may be cited JUB. III. 9. 4 *enam etad dīkṣayanti . . . mṛtasya vāvaiṣa tadā rūpam bhavati*. Any Sacrifice is a symbolic *suicide*; it is himself that the Sacrificer sacrifices to the Gods, to Agni (AB. II. 3 *ātmānam ālabhate*; and ŚB. passim); cf. my "Ātmayajña" in *HJAS.* VI. 358-398, 1942. Moreover, the installation of a King parallels not only that of Varuṇa, but that of King Soma, and although it is for a "supreme sovereignty" and "not for slaying thee" that Soma is bought, nevertheless "when they press him they slay him" (ŚB. III. 3. 2. 8), saying: "Fear not . . . it is the evil that is slain, not Soma" and "*Thereby he slays all his evil*" (*sárvaṁ pāpmānaṁ hanti*, VS. VI. 35 and ŚB. III. 9. 4. 17-18). The beating of the King which puts him above the law, so that he can do no wrong (ŚB. V. 4. 4. 7) is analogous to the pressing of Soma by which "his evil" is removed. In the same way the expiatory bath with which a Sacrifice concludes, taken not in flowing ("living") but in Varuṇya (stagnant) waters, is a kind of death (cf. CU. III. 17. 5 *maraṇam evāvabhṛthaḥ*), and com-