The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.26

c12.26

That the dilemma of kingship does not admit of a definitive solution is after all not very surprising, nor does this seem to be an exclusively Indian phenomenon. The pertinent question, however, is, In what way did Indian, or more precisely, "Sanskritic" thought—as distinct from the sometimes successful but always dubious compromise of historical reality—deal with the intractable aporia? For an answer to this question, it may be appropriate to look at the Vedic ritual texts, especially those that deal with the royal rites. They are useful not only because of their unique extensiveness and authoritativeness—whatever their practical value—but also because they demonstrate that the ritual, however mindlessly performed, is based on penetrating thought. Ritual cannot escape the fundamental problem but must somehow express it in well-defined acts. Ritual, in other words, should make the insoluble at least acceptable without glossing it over. Putting it plainly, the ritual cannot simply put the king on his throne and leave the matter there. The rājasūya, for instance, is far from being so restricted; it is in fact an all but endless series of cycles stretching over a number of years. When it ends, the end seems to be rather arbitrary, and indeed the king has then again to start upon yet another ritual, the sautrāmaṇī, not to mention others. This unremitting series of beginnings and re-beginnings indicates that the ritual is not simply a question of unction, or rather aspersion, and enthronization. There are, to be sure, abbreviated forms such as the consecratory aspersion (*abhiṣeka*) of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, but the same text also knows the *punarabhiṣeka*, or repeated consecration, which curiously is mentioned even before the *abhiṣeka* proper.⁵⁸ Here we can already notice that the royal consecration is not performed once and for all but is in fact an unending cycle. As we shall see, this cycle enables the ritual to give full weight to the dilemma of kingship and to handle it effectively.