The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.14

c10.14

Perhaps this motif has been overemphasized, if not hackneyed, at the expense of other themes, such as the overcoming of death—that is, gaining access to transcendence—but it is all the same striking that sacrifice has come to be represented in our texts as the fail-safe, risk-free mechanism that will automatically deliver the goods of life. Clearly this is the result of a peculiar development, one that took out the sting of death and absolutized the capacity of sacrifice for establishing order. But even so, the awareness of sacrificial violence and destruction was preserved.