The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c16.23

c16.23

But this does not solve the problem, for there still is the chasm between power and hierarchy. The final junction of the two is brought about at the “secondary” level of actual practice by “surreptitiously” assimilating power to the hierarchy of purity.²⁴ The fact that something surreptitious should be needed to achieve the junction of the two opposite orders shows, of course, that the problem remains wide open. Hierarchy “is obliged to close its eyes to this point on pain of destroying itself”.²⁵ The problem cannot be solved, it can only be patched over. But the model of hierarchic interdependence tying together the whole with the encompassing value of purity has much to recommend itself since it seems to transcribe Indian attitudes and utterances.