The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.31

c12.31

The ritual cycle, as we saw, should connect community and outside world as two phases. When we now look again at the rājasūya, we notice that not only unction and enthronization are separated but, more importantly, that the interval is taken up by an interesting rite, the chariot drive. This rite is clearly marked as a symbolic war expedition by the fact that the king has to shoot arrows in the direction of a kṣatriya posted at the far end of the chariot course. According to one version, this seemingly harmless event even appears as a ritualized cattle raid.⁶⁶ In other words, after the unction the king should go abroad on a raiding expedition. Then, after his triumphant return, he mounts the throne and the cycle is closed. That the unction is followed by an expedition into the outside world does not seem to be accidental. It tallies perfectly with the overall scheme of the Soma ritual where the sacrificer undergoes the dīkṣā in the grāma, as the dictum quoted above has it, and then departs. In fact, the royal unction is nothing but a prestigious, complicated version of the dīkṣā—or, rather, the other way round. The dīkṣa is the generalized and simplified, not to say "democratized," form of the abhiṣeka, putting on a par the royal and the commoner sacrificer.⁶⁷ Also the dīkṣita's collecting of charitable gifts for the purpose of sacrifice (*saniyācana*), although reduced to the innocuous format of religious begging, still bears a distinct relationship to the chariot raid. If we consider that, according to Manu, the necessities for the sacrifice may be taken by force, if not willingly given, the saniyācana reveals its not so innocuous nature.⁶⁸