The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.46

c10.46

At this point, not sacrifice and ritual, but knowledge—the knowledge of the self—holds the center of the stage. This knowledge had already announced itself when it enabled Prajāpati to resolve all antitheses and to integrate into himself his opponent, Death. In the "one who knows," all opposites coincide and become one. The ritual of sacrifice therefore cannot be the pivotal moment in Indian thought, for it has been overcome and superseded by knowledge.⁵¹ This is what gives knowledge in the form of the Veda its transcendent authority. Therefore, too, this knowledge is cut off from the world over which it holds ultimate authority but to which, for the same reason, it cannot relate.