[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c12.s2 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.s2: 11 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.s2 - **Language:** English ### 11 ### [c12.s2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c12.s2.1) It would be tedious to continue this demonstration, which could in fact be extended throughout the śrauta ritual. But one more point is interesting for our purpose. This point concerns the king's \*daṇḍa\*, or staff. In the classical dharma texts, the daṇḍa is the primordial and exclusive symbol of the king's capacity to punish. Daṇḍa has even come to mean punishment itself and as such is identified with dharma. Now we know the daṇḍa, though not in the later sense, from the Vedic ritual as the typical attribute of the consecrated sacrificer, which is handed to him after the dīkṣa bath, that is, at the time when he is supposed to set out on his expedition.⁸² In this context, it represents Voice, who took refuge in the trees, that is, in the jungle. But without Voice, it is said, no prowess (\*vīrya\*) can be shown. ### [c12.s2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c12.s2.2) It would seem, then, that the dīkṣita's daṇḍa represents the voice of superior authority, which has to be found outside, in the forest—the daṇḍa being significantly addressed as "lord of the forest" (\*vanaspati\*). On a more mundane level, it is a weapon as well—to enforce authority—and is equated with the \*vajra\*.⁸³ Not unlike the scepter, it seems originally to have been the typical equipment of one who goes abroad.⁸⁴ Thus the daṇḍa also belongs to the paraphernalia of the wandering and fighting \*vrātya\*.⁸⁵ This also may explain why in the cyclical pattern of the ritual the daṇḍa is not acquired once and for all, but has to be transmitted after the wandering phase, at the beginning of the sacrifice proper, to the brahmin who acts as the \*maitrāvaruṇa\* officiant, called in this connection leader of the sacrificial priests.⁸⁶ Although the daṇḍa is not specifically mentioned in the context of the royal unction, where its place seems to be taken by a bow and arrows, it is interesting to see it turn up unexpectedly again at the end of the rājasūya. There the daṇḍa, together with the shoes (which prevented the consecrated king from coming into direct contact with the earth) and a dry skin bag, is sent to the rival kings (\*pratirājānaḥ\*).⁸⁷ Presumably, this may originally have meant that it was now their turn to take up the burden of the wandering warrior's life. The point I want to stress, however, is that the daṇḍa, the archetypal symbol of kingship and maintenance of the dharma, is when we first meet it the typical attribute of the warrior's life abroad. That is, authority and its symbol are situated outside the community. They can only be put into contact with the community by means of the alternating cycle. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c12.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c12.s2) · Pramāṇa