The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.30

c10.30

Because of its connection with the rising and setting of the sun, the agnihotra has usually been explained as a magical operation meant to support and maintain the sun on its regular daily course.³² The essential point of the ritual—to which the obvious solar connection seems to be subservient—appears, however, to be a different one, namely, the neutralization or desacralization of food so as to make it free for consumption. The materials for his food do not belong to man by right; it is, in other words, something inviolable or sacred. As a passage on the agnihotra says, “food belongs to the gods.”³³ And even of the gods it is said that those among them who ate without sacrificing a bit of the food in the fire disappeared.³⁴ Appropriation and preparation of food are a violation of the sacred. The ritual texts are perfectly clear on the point that grinding, pressing, cooking, and boiling constitute acts of killing the same as the killing of an animal.³⁵ Later texts also speak about kitchen utensils as so many slaughter houses.³⁶