The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.s3.2

c12.s3.2

The jeopardy to which kingship is subject is curiously but no less clearly expressed by the recurring notion of the disintegrating effect that the unction is supposed to have on the anointed. The rājasūya is also known as *varuṇasava*, or consecration of Varuṇa.⁸⁸ The rājasūya sacrificer enacts the role of this sovereign god. But in the same context, it is said that the unction takes away the god's as well as his human epigone's strength, causing them, like humpty-dumpty, to fall apart. The king's unction is at the same time his undoing, and he must be put together again by the *saṁsṛp* offerings. In other words, he must, as we saw, go out into the wilds to recuperate the strength that has left him.⁸⁹