The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.s4: 13
The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.s4
- Language
- English
13
c12.s4.1
So the cyclical paradigm, far from offering a solution, is wrought with constant risk and the threat of violent breakdown. It called, in other words, for a thorough reform on the basis of a new orientation. That such a reform did indeed take place is indicated by the restructuring of the ritual. Although the original pattern of endless cyclical alternation can with relative ease be reconstructed from the texts,⁹² this is no longer the meaning of the ritual. On the contrary, it is cut up in single rectilineal stretches of rites with clear-cut beginnings and ends. As we saw, this was the reason for the seemingly confused order of the relevant consecratory rites, the original cycles having been cut at different points. The restructuring, which cut up and destroyed the cyclical concatenation was, of course, not a frivolous undertaking. It was pointedly and systematically done. The purpose was to break out of the endless cycle by establishing a new conception of the transcendent, and thereby of authority.⁹³
c12.s4.2
As long as settled agricultural communities were limited in number and restricted in their resources, while wide expanses were left open, the alternation of settled life with nomadic raiding and transhuming expeditions to supplement meager resources may have been a reasonably effective proposition. However, with the growth and spread of settled agriculture, a different type of organization and a new conception of authority would have been needed. At any rate, the ritual reform gave a new answer to the problem of authority. The cyclical pattern of alternation between grāma and araṇya did manage to keep up the contact between this and the other world, between settled community and authority transcending it, but at a price of violence and insecurity. Authority and the settled life dependent on it remained all the time contingent on the uncertain outcome of the cycle of violence. We can readily understand the criticism which even the *Mahābhārata*, though still clearly showing the original cyclical pattern and even recommending death while facing the enemy as the "sacrifice of battle",⁹⁴ has Bhīṣma, himself a warrior-sage, level against war. Even victory in battle, Bhīṣma convincingly argues, is simply an evil.⁹⁵ The same idea seems to underlie the ritual reform, which as we have it in the texts, rules out violence and battle, reducing the last remnants of agonistic rites such as the chariot drive to innocuous, strictly ritualized affairs. In order to achieve this, it broke the cycle of violence. And by breaking the cycle, it opened the way to free authority and make it unassailably transcendent.
c12.s4.3
However, the price for establishing transcendent authority was again a heavy one. Authority was still located outside the community, in *araṇya*, but by the breaking of the cycle that connected *grāma* and *araṇya*, it was irretrievably cut off from the social world. Absolute, transcendent authority therefore could not benefit society's premier agent, the king. It became instead vested in the Veda, which was fixed and codified as the eternal, not man-made, and therefore indisputable knowledge of the ritual. But the Vedic *śrauta* ritual has no relation to society anymore. Its performance is situated outside society, its reward is in itself and its result the metaphysical *apūrva* ("what was not there before") of the *mīmāṃsā* theorists without any social relevance. The price for the Veda's transcendent authority was that society and king were barred from its operation.
Linked texts (1)
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit