The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.24

c10.24

Vedic ritual, as transcendent injunction, can only be devoted to the maintenance of a static, unchanging order of the universe. At least, that is what the texts keep telling us. It should keep up a constant, uninterrupted circulation between men and gods, earth and heaven. The burnt offering goes upward to heaven whence it comes down again in the form of beneficial rain.²⁸ It is all unbroken order based on automatic reciprocity. But within this order, there is no room anymore for the unpredictable working of the transcendent. It is then not surprising that in post-Vedic Hinduism the gods are no longer considered to be transcendent. They are, like their human counterparts, caught within the same *saṃsāra*, the same closed circulatory system.