The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s4.46

c19.s4.46

Completing the sacrifice with all five victims obviously leaves open the problem of the heads. The problem is stated in these terms: on one hand, completing the sacrifice with all five victims would "exhaust" the heads; on the other hand, taking them out of the sacrifice would disrupt the ritual. The solution preferred by the Black Yajurveda is to have it both ways: start with all five, take four of them out after consecration, and complete the ritual only with the Prajāpati he-goat. Since the goat replaces the human victim, whose head is obtained in a nonsacrificial way, the sacrifice itself does not involve decapitation (*TS* 5. 1. 8. 3; *MS* 3. 1. 10; *KS* 19. 8). This comes as near as possible to squaring the vicious circle, except for the fact that taking out consecrated victims goes against the grain of the system's closed circuit. It implies the recognition that besides the closed universe of sacrifice something else, outside it, is needed to make it fulfill its purpose (as is also clear from the fact that the human head has to come from elsewhere).