The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.38

c10.38

The solution is based on separating the priestly office at the sacrifice from the eating of the sacrificer's food. However, both acts, officiating and eating, are two sides of the same function. The brahmin cannot officiate for a sacrificer whose food he cannot eat.⁴⁵ Conversely, if he does accept the sacrificer's food, it is hard to see how he can refuse to officiate for him on the grounds of the sacrificer's impurity. The kṣatriya's impurity is in both cases equally prohibitive. So the problem is further complicated, and therefore we find yet another attempt at solving it. The exclusion of the kṣatriya is waived if he has shown his ritual devotion by performing the Soma sacrifice. But how can the impure kṣatriya be able to perform the complicated and weighty Soma ritual, for which he will have to engage not just one but sixteen or seventeen brahmin officiants, when he is already excluded from the simple agnihotra? Not surprisingly, this is left unexplained and the problem remains as refractory as before.