[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c19.s2 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s2: Chapter One The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s2 - **Language:** English ### Chapter One ### [c19.s2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.1) 1. For the classical threat of scarcity and starvation, see E. Rau, \*Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien\* (Wiesbaden, 1957), 31. ### [c19.s2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.2) 2. One may compare the verbal contest, discussed in chapter 5, where the contestants strive to make their personal "subjective truth" prevail. ### [c19.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.3) 3. W. C. Neale, "Reciprocity and Redistribution," in \*Trade and Market in Early Empires\*, ed. K. Polanyi, C. M. Arensberg, and H. W. Pearson (Glencoe, Ill., 1957), 218–36; see also Neale's article in \*Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History\*, ed. R. E. Frykenberg (Madison, 1969), 5. On the complications of rights in the soil, see also chapter 12. ### [c19.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.4) 4. See O. Brunner, "Vom Gottesgnadentum zum monarchischen Prinzip," in \*Das Königtum\*, ed. Th. Mayer (Darmstadt, 1969), 289, on "der urtümliche Glauben dass die Enscheidung der Waffen 'Gott und das Recht' offenbare." In the same way, we can understand the feudal obligation of consilium binding both the lord and his men. ### [c19.s2.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.5) 5. Louis Dumont, \*Homo Hierarchicus\* (Paris, 1967), 107. ### [c19.s2.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.6) 6. Richard Lingat, \*Les Sources du droit dans le système traditionel de l'Inde\*, (Paris, 1967), 29–32. ### [c19.s2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.7) 7. Robert Lingat, "Time and the Dharma," \*Contributions to Indian Sociology\* 6 (1962): 13. ### [c19.s2.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.8) 8. Dumont, \*Homo Hierarchicus\*. The point where I differ from Dumont primarily concerns the brahmin. Dumont views the brahmin as the priestly exponent of purity in the mundane order of society and therefore associates him with the king in an overall scheme of hierarchy. Against this view, I emphasize the scriptural statements that warn the brahmin against association with the king and stress his (ideal) independence (see below, chap. 10). ### [c19.s2.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.9) 9. A. C. Mayer, \*Caste and Kinship in Central India\* (Berkeley, 1960), 33–47; also Mayer, "The Dominant Caste in a Region of Central India," \*South Western Journal of Anthropology\* 14 (1958): 407–27. Mayer's findings are also discussed by Dumont, \*Homo Hierarchicus\*, para. 36. ### [c19.s2.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.10) 10. Brenda F. Beck, "The Right-Left Division of South Indian Society," \*Journal of Asian Studies\* 29, no. 4 (August 1970): 779–98. ### [c19.s2.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.11) 11. Miss Beck's use of the latter term seems to echo Mayer's concept of "allied castes." ### [c19.s2.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.12) 12. See Miss Beck's graph, where we find right-hand castes neatly ranked in an almost vertical row, while the left-hand castes are typically scattered and their rankings consequently vague. Thus, for instance, the left-hand merchant (no. 7) is, as may be expected, slightly higher than the artisan from the same division (no. 9). Yet the latter scores higher as regards brahminical conformity. ### [c19.s2.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.13) 13. Mayer, \*Caste and Kinship\*, 37. ### [c19.s2.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.14) 14. For a detailed discussion of this theme, see chapter 2. ### [c19.s2.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.15) 15. See chapter 10. ### [c19.s2.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.16) 16. \*Manu\* 9. 111. ### [c19.s2.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.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. ### [c19.s2.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.18) 18. M. N. Srinivas, \*Caste in Modern India and Other Essays\* (Bombay, 1962), chaps. 1 and 2; on the modernity of brahminical law, see L. I. Rudolph and S. H. Rudolph, \*The Modernity of Tradition\* (Chicago, 1967), 269–79. ### [c19.s2.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.19) 19. It would, of course, be equally possible to study change by focusing on the cultural sphere. The pivotal point would then have to be the concept of “Hinduism” and its content, which, coming up in the thirties of the last century in English literature on India and expressing nothing more than an ill-assorted complex of social and religious customs, rites, and beliefs, both popular and scriptural, develops into a world religion, expressing the awareness of a new universalistic identity on the part of educated Indians. ### [c19.s2.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.20) 20. On the Mughal Empire see chapter 11, sections 2–6. See also A. Wink, “Land and Sovereignty in eighteenth-century India” (Doctoral thesis, Leiden, 1984). In an analysis of the underlying ideas of the empire based on contemporary data, Wink emphasizes the element of conflict. ### [c19.s2.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.21) 21. R. G. Fox, \*Kin, Clan, Raja, and Rule\* (Berkeley, 1971). Fox discerns five stages of a development cycle, moving from a segmentary lineage system through stratification to the breakthrough of ruling elements that “rip through the genealogical cover which had tied their political activities to the expansive familism of the group” (p. 159). Finally the system reverts again to the first stage. Though the analysis refers to the kinship-based rajput polity, the two main points of the cycle, dispersion and concentration of power, are generally relevant. We may also turn to Leach’s analysis of the transition between the Kachin and Shan types of polity in \*Political Systems of Highland Burma\* (Boston, 1965). ### [c19.s2.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.22) 22. Fox, \*Kin, Clan, Raja\*, 170. ### [c19.s2.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.23) 23. See chapter 9. ### [c19.s2.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.24) 24 . See D. H. A. Kolff, “An Armed Peasantry and Its Allies: Rajput Tradition and State Formation in North India, 1450–1900” (Doctoral thesis, Leiden, 1983). ### [c19.s2.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.25) 25. See J. C. Heesterman, “Vrātya and Sacrifice,” \*Indo-Iranian Journal\* 6 (1962): 1–37. ### [c19.s2.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.26) 26. Beck, “The Right-Left Division”, 780. ### [c19.s2.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.27) 27. B. Stein, “Integration of the Agrarian System of South India,” in Frykenberg, \*Land Control\*, 188ff. ### [c19.s2.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.28) 28. W. Schlesinger, “Das Heerkönigtum,” in Mayer, \*Das Königtum\*, 105–43. ### [c19.s2.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.29) 29. S. N. Gordon, “Scarf and Sword,” \*Indian Economic and Social History Review\* 6 (1969): 403–29; see also D. H. A. Kolff, “Sannyasi-Trader-Soldiers,” and Gordon’s comment, ibid. 8 (1971): 213–220. ### [c19.s2.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.30) 30. Another way of describing this bifurcation would be in terms of the divorce of power and authority, the latter being beyond reach in the transcendent extrasocial sphere. See J. C. Heesterman, “Power and Authority in Indian Tradition,” in \*Tradition and Politics in South Asia\*, ed. R. J. Moore (New Delhi, 1979), 60–85, and chapter 10 below. ### [c19.s2.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.31) 31. It is perhaps not just accidental that the Prophet left no instructions as to the community’s form of government. ### [c19.s2.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.32) ³² \*A'S\* 7. 5. 49. ### [c19.s2.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.33) ³³ T. R. Metcalf, “From Raja to Landlord” and “British Land Policy,” in Frykenberg, \*Land Control\*, 123–41, 143–62; P. D. Reeves, “Landlords and Party Politics,” in \*Soundings in Modern South Asian History\*, ed. D. A. Low (Berkeley, 1968), 261–82. ### [c19.s2.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.34) 34. For a case in point, see R. E. Frykenberg's study of local influence and central authority, \*Guntur District, 1788–1848\* (Oxford, 1965). ### [c19.s2.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.35) 35. With regard to India's economic history in the nineteenth century, the seminal suggestions of M. D. Morris are particularly interesting. See M. D. Morris, ed., \*Indian Economy in the Nineteenth Century: A Symposium\* (Delhi, 1969). ### [c19.s2.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.36) 36. R. Kumar, "The Political Process in India," \*South Asia\* 1 (August 1971): 97. ### [c19.s2.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.37) 37. Ibid., 101. ### [c19.s2.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2.38) 38. Gandhi's role in the reorganization of the Congress comes out clearly in D. Rothermund, "Constitutional Reform versus National Agitation," \*Journal of Asian Studies\* 21 (August 1962): 505–21. See also chapter 11, section 8. ## Linked texts (2) - [Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.kautilya.7.5.49) — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit - [Mānava Dharmaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.dharma.manu.9.111) — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s2) · Pramāṇa