The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.17

c12.17

This is, of course, a far cry from the idea of the powerful king "who makes his own age." But it would be erroneous to view the shift in emphasis from the dependent king in the ritual to the unrestricted "maker of the age" as the result of historical development, for the same picture of the king's confinement in a network of actors emerges from the classical doctrine of the "circle of kings." This circle is constituted by the "conquering king" (*vijigīṣu*), his enemy, the power adjacent to both, and the outside power; each of these four "elements" (*prakṛti*) again has an ally and an ally's ally. That makes twelve "elements" to start with. Then we have to add for each of these "king elements" five further "elements"—minister, land-cum-people (*janapada*), fortified place, treasure, and army—so that the total comes to seventy-two.³⁷