The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.32

c10.32

This numinous and threatening background forms a striking contrast to the total harmlessness of the agnihotra. The insecure interaction of transgression and retribution, of killing and being killed, has been replaced by the steady alternation of the sun's rising and setting, of day and night, and by the circulation between heaven and earth. The ritualistic control of alternation and circulation should enable the sacrificer to rise above them and so to overcome death. The unsettling interplay with the sacred has been eliminated. What is specifically lacking is the element of contest and battle, the fight for the goods of life that we have come to recognize as the essential uncertainty of sacrifice. Instead, the exclusive emphasis is on mechanistic certainty.