The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c13.s1.32

c13.s1.32

Thus, in the royal game of dice that forms part of the rājasūya, we see the king take part on an equal footing with the other players, and it is significant that the stake of the game—a cow or a dish of food (*odana*)—is divided in differential share among the participants.⁵² It is a matter of redistribution of resources, diametrically opposed to bureaucratic management. In this context, the king clearly does not transcend the community. He is ritually "reborn" through the agonistic interaction of his equals.⁵³ This idea of the king's ritual "birth" figures largely throughout the whole royal ritual, he is "born," as already mentioned, as the garbha of the viś. And this idea fits in perfectly with the conception of the community as being made up of connubial relations.⁵⁴ He is, as it were, the nexus and issue of these bonds, and it is not surprising that connubium, as we saw, takes up an important place in the atonement and reintegration festival.