The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c10.5

c10.5

duism. This is true even today. It would otherwise be hard to account for the vivid interest, devotion, and controversy aroused by the recent performance of a complicated Vedic sacrifice in the tradional style of the Nambudiri brahmins of Central Kerala.³ More important, the "language" and terminology of sacrifice appear to have known a far-reaching influence and diffusion. Thus the recitation of Vedic texts is itself considered a sacrifice (*yajña*), namely, a *brahmayajña*.⁴ The brahmin who takes his food can do so as a sacrificial offering in the internal "fires" of the breaths (*prāṇāgnihotra*)⁵. The king or warrior is allowed to look on his worldly and not always very devout activities as a life-long sacrificial session (*sattra*), which entitles him to claim purity and immunity in the exercise of his duties.⁶ Similarly, the patron, or "boss," is in many Indian languages known as *jajmān*, that is, *yajamāna*, "sacrificer." Even the renouncer's texts, which have no use for the actual practice of sacrifice, are replete with the sacrificial idiom. It is clear that the idea of sacrifice has been very much generalized. But should this also be taken to mean, as Professor Biardeau says, that "l'action rituelle, sans cesse répétée, est le modèle même de toute action, et que le sacrifice, mode de communication de la terre avec le ciel, en est le centre"?⁷ Or is it only a generalized way of expression which has irretrievably blurred the precise outlines and content of sacrifice?⁸ Put differently, does all talk of sacrifice in reality amount to "de la poussière védique"?⁹