The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.41

c10.41

The ancient alternating cycle left room for the transcendent in its catastrophic center at the cost of an awesome uncertainty. The mechanistic system of ritual excluded the catastrophe, but it too had to pay for its achievement. Catastrophe was replaced by contradiction. This was the only way in which the ritual system could account for the insoluble problem of the transcendent.