The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c14.s1.12

c14.s1.12

The analysis of the ratnins shows that kingship is constituted by the network of personal relations; it cannot transcend it. Indeed at least one school includes the king himself—namely the *rājan* mentioned above—in the list of the ratnins. The basic paradigm of the network seems to be kinship and connubium spanning the whole quadripartite community. The king is only a primus inter pares who, even when consecrated, needs the concurrence of the ratnins for making a land grant to the brahman officiant.¹⁹