The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s2.17

c19.s2.17

17. The earliest manifestation of brahminical individualism is the insistence on the single sacrificer, who has the ritual performed for his own benefit, and the prohibition of collective sacrifices as a social event. *Sacra publica* are conspicuous by their absence, and even the royal consecration is represented as a single-sacrificer affair. But from the texts, it is clear that this one-sided stress on individualism represented a daring innovation on the part of the systematizers of the ritual. However, the innovation most probably was never fully put into practice, for next to it the nonsystematized ritual continued in full force.