The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c14.s1.29

c14.s1.29

However, brahmin as a specialized and closed class, or rather "estate," in the sense of the first of the four varṇas, is a late construct and certainly does not belong to the context of the agonistic sacrifice. In general, the *brahmán* or *brāhmaṇa* has no clear counterpart in the old-Iranian evidence but is a specifically Indian development. The brahmán in the Vedic texts is the bearer or representative of the impersonal *bráhman*. Perhaps the best and most comprehensive paraphrase of the latter term is the one given by Renou: "énergie connective comprimée en énigmes." Its context is the verbal contest, the *brahmodya*, where the contestants fight each other with enigmatic formulations—not solutions—of the cosmic riddle that they have "seen" or "found." The contestant who finally manages to reduce the others to silence vindicates himself as the *brahmán* par excellence.³⁵ But this also means that the quality of being a brahman is open and dependent on the outcome of the periodically renewed contest in the same way that power and authority are.