The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c11.19

c11.19

The character of this ritualism comes out with particular clarity in the way it transformed the visionary truth of the *brahman*, the mysterious inner “connection” that holds together the universe.²¹ By its nature, the cosmic truth could only be expressed in the enigmatic formulations that did not explain the *brahman* but contained it in the silent hollow of the unresolved riddle. The contest in which the parties fought each other with visionary enigmatic formulas formed an essential part of the sacrificial scenario. It was a momentous and hazardous struggle where the contestants risked their lives, and the winning contestant showed himself to hold the visionary truth of the cosmic enigma. But, as we saw, Prajāpati’s victory over Death put an end to all this. The contest for the *brahman* only survives in a few *brahmodyas*, ritualized exchanges of fixed riddle formulas learnt by heart.²² “L’énigme essentielle du Veda”²³ has been replaced by the rationalized *brahman* that consists in cut-and-dried identifications of disparate elements of the divine and human worlds with those of the ritual. Indeed, identification, based on qualitative and numerical equivalence (*sampad*, *saṃkhyānam*), is said to have given Prajāpati his decisive victory. It is the premier intellectual tool for organizing the disjointed universe in the perfect order of the ritual. Even though the sheer weight of intricate detail requires the services of technical experts, the priestly *ṛtvijaḥ*, the system of liturgical elements and identifications is clear in itself. It has no place for mystery or enigma and, above all, it can be systematically taught and learned.