Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s6: Chapter Five

The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s6

Language
English

Chapter Five

c19.s6.1

1. On the vāda expositions and their development into treatises on logic, see Gerhard Oberhammer, “Ein Beitrag zu den Vāda-Traditionen Indiens,” *Weiner Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd - und Ost asiens* 7 (1963): 63ff.

c19.s6.2

2. On this meaning of the contest, see F. B. J. Kuiper, “The Ancient Aryan Verbal Contest,” *Indo-Iranian Journal* 4 (1960): 218ff.

c19.s6.3

³ L. Renou, “La Notion de *bráhman*,” *Journal Asiatique* 237 (1949): 7ff.; also, “Le Passage des Brāhmaṇa aux Upaniṣad,” *Journal of the American Oriental Society* 73 (1953): 138ff. Cf. P. Thieme, “Bráhman,” *Zeitschrift der Duetschen Morgenlämdischen Gcschichte* 102 (1952): 91–129. Thieme argues that Renou’s “riddle formulation” is at best an intensified or special meaning of the general “formulation.” (p. 102).

c19.s6.4

4. For instance, the Kurus remain silent on a question put to them by the Pañcālas and are therefore defeated. The solution is not stated but give outisde the dialogue by the narrotor (JB 1. 262); cf. also *ŚB* 1. 5. 4. 6, where the asuras remain silent in the fifth round, thus yielding victory to the devas.

c19.s6.5

5. As does, e.g., Janaka in the first round of the debate cycle with Yāhñavalkya (*ŚB* 11. 6. 2. 4); this is possibly also the case with Uddālaka when he refuses to answer, giving his answers only afterward to his pupils (JB 1. 296). This withdrawal still seems to be reflected in Caraka's vāda rules, where the winning party is said to sit down leaving the decision to the assembly (pariṣad)—of course after having made certain that the assembly will hand him the palm (*Caraka Saṃhitá* 3. 8. 25)

c19.s6.6

6. *Ví yás tastámbha sáḷ imá rájāṃsy ajásya rūpé.*

c19.s6.7

7. *Tisró mātṝ́r trī́n pitṝ́n bíbhrad éka ūrdhvás tasthau ném áva glāpayanti.*

c19.s6.8

8. Verse 34: *Pṛchā́mi tvā páram ántaṃ pṛthivyā́ḥ, pṛchā́mi yátra bhúvanasya nā́bhiḥ, pṛchā́mi tvā vṛ́ṣṇo áśvasya rétaḥ, pṛchā́mi vācáḥ paramáṃ vyòma.*

c19.s6.9

9. Verse 35: *Iyám védiḥ páro ántaḥ pṛthivyā́, ayáṃ yajñó bhúvanasya nā́bhiḥ, ayáṃ sómo vṛ́ṣṇo áśvasya réto brahmā́yáṃ vācáḥ paramáṃ vyòma.*

c19.s6.10

10. It is no mere coincidence that these two verses, *RV* 1. 164, 34–35, form the conclusion of the well-known brahmodya after the immolation of the sacrificial horse (cf. *ŚB* 13. 5. 2. 21; VS 23. 61–62). For this brahmodya, cf. also Renou, “La Notion de *bráhman*,” 32.

c19.s6.11

11. This mystery is also expressed in the ritual copulation of the queen with the dead horse (a contradiction) and in the exchange of obscene verses at this scene.

c19.s6.12

12. According to the Black Yajurveda, this verse is indeed spoken by the brahman officiant, who thereby triumphantly concludes the brahmodya of the horse sacrifice (cf. *ĀpŚS* 20. 19. 8). Enunciating the final *bráhman*, he shows himself a true *brahmán*.

c19.s6.13

13. At this point, I should warn that though I am indebted to Renou's study, the above exposé is not covered by the authority of the great savant. The main difference is the emphasis I place on antithetical formulation, as against mere identification. Silence is the outcome of the verbal contest, not merely a stage on the way to the final formulation. Renou seems to suggest a similar line when he tentatively suggests that the classical brahmodya is ‘peut-être dégradé’ with regard to “l'énigme essentielle du védisme ancien,” but he does not follow this up. This does not preclude the possibility of riddles with explicit solutions at particular occasions. However, the oldest texts seem exclusively to give enigmatic formulations without explicit answers, as Renou also observes (“La Notion de *bráhman*,” 41).

c19.s6.14

14. This self-assertion in lieu of solution recurs also in other places of the aśvamedha brahmodya. The officiants take turns questioning each other. Thus, at the question of the brahman officiant concerning the three places (*padá*), the udgātṛ answers, “I am in those three places” (VS 23. 50); next the two partners change roles, and the udgātṛ questions the brahman, who ends his answer with “you are not superior to me in *māyā́*” (VS 52); this seems to be final, as now two other debaters take over. Next again brahman-udgātṛ and vice versa; when it is the brahman's turn to answer, he simply states, “I know the navel of the world,” without any further explanation (VS 60). Finally, in a last round, the sacrificer challenges the brahman (“I ask you . . . ”), who then concludes, as we saw, with the triumphant answer (“I am the highest extension of speech . . . ”).

c19.s6.15

¹⁵ *ŚB* 11. 6. 3.

c19.s6.16

¹¹ Cf. the following brahmodya passages:

c19.s6.17

¹⁰ 3. 3. 5: Dhīra goes up to Jābāla, who challenges him with questions, but Dhīra is equal to the occasion. Jābāla gets down from his seat and becomes Dhīra's pupil.

c19.s6.18

¹⁰ 3. 4. 2: (Uddālaka Āruṇi) questions Vaiśvārasavya, whom his son had retained

c19.s6.19

as a hotṛ officiant. Not knowing the answers to the second set of questions, Vaiśvāra-savya becomes Uddālaka's pupil.

c19.s6.20

11. 4. 1. 9: Uddālaka Āruṇi, though recognized as "a brahman and son of a brahman who will cause his challenger's head to fly off," is nonetheless silenced by Svaidāyana and, with the characteristic act of bringing firewood, becomes the latter's pupil.

c19.s6.21

11. 5. 3. 13: Śauceya, outwitted by Uddālaka, whom he has challenged, surrenders, firewood in hand, and becomes Uddālaka's pupil.

c19.s6.22

11. 6. 2. 1; 4. 10: Janaka challenges three brahmins; among them is Yājñavalkya. The latter proves himself the most knowledgeable and is given a thousand cows by Janaka, who then goes off leaving Yājñavalkya with a last unanswered question. Yājñavalkya goes after Janaka to challenge him but in fact becomes his pupil. Having received Janaka's teaching, Yājñavalkya grants Janaka at his request the right to question him in his turn; thereby Janaka, though a kṣatriya, becomes a brahman.

c19.s6.23

The last episode clearly shows the pattern of challenge and reversal: First Janaka asks the questions, then it is Yājñavalkya's turn, and finally Janaka again challenges Yājñavalkya with questions. In a similar way, we see Uddālaka first as challenger and then being challenged himself by Svaidāyana and becoming his pupil. The contestants in the brahmodya of the horse sacrifice also take turns. The contest, then, goes on indefinitely, cyclically alternating the roles.

c19.s6.24

16. See, e.g., *ŚB* 11. 6. 2. 4.

c19.s6.25

17. See chapter 2, especially sections 5 and 6.

c19.s6.26

18. L. Renou, "Le Passage des Brāhmaṇa aux Upaniṣad," *Journal American Oriental Society* 73 (1953): 138–44.

c19.s6.27

19. For these formulas, cf. *TĀ* 3. 1. 1 (daśahotṛ); 3. 2. 1 (caturhotṛ); 3. 3. 1 (pañcahotṛ); 3. 5. 1 (saptahotṛ); 3. 6. 1 (ṣaḍḍhotṛ).

c19.s6.28

20. *TB* 2. 2. 1. 4: *etád vaí devānā́m paramáṃ gúhyaṃ bráhma, yáccáturhotāraḥ*.

c19.s6.29

21. *PB* 4. 9. 12; *AB* 5. 25. 22; *KB* 25. 4; *TB* 2. 3. 5. 1. Cf. *ĀpŚS* 21. 11. 12ff.

c19.s6.30

22. It is interesting that something of the original openness of the contest is still discernible in the description of this brahmodya: "Some say, 'Agni is the gṛhapati,' . . . some say, 'Vāyu is the gṛhapati,' . . . some say, 'The one that burns yonder (the sun) is the gṛhapati' " (*AB* 5. 25. 22).

c19.s6.31

²³ In this connection, it may be noted that according to *TB* 2. 3. 5. 5, the knowledge that the caturhotṛ formulas are the whole cosmos gives victory in debate.

c19.s6.32

²⁴ *PB* 5. 5. 13; cf. *KS* 34.

c19.s6.33

⁵ According to the Taittirīyakas and the *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa*, the praising and reviling are done by the two champions who fight for the hide (cf. *TS* 7. 5. 9. 2; *TB* 1. 2. 6. 7; *JB* 2. 405). The abhigara and the apagara are further mentioned in the list of officiating participants at the serpent sattra (*PB* 25. 15. 3). That these two particular officiants are not just an incidental feature is suggested by the fact that at least one of them, the abhigara, has found a place in Baudhāyana's list of officiants in the standard Soma sacrifice, though no specific function is assigned to him. He occurs there together with the *dhruvagopa* (the guardian of the Soma beverage, not mentioned otherwise) and the *saṃsrāva* as an acolyte of the equally elusive *sadasya* (apparently the representative of the guests) (*BaudhŚS* 2. 3.: 37. 1). Obviously, a praising and reviling contest cannot be part of the explicitly nonagonistic classical ritual, and it is hardly surprising that the abhigara's counterpart, the "reviler," has been suppressed. It is to be noted that his fellow acolyte, the *dhruvagopa*, who guards the permanent Soma draught—against whom?—and who is a *rājapūtra*, also seems to be a contestant (on the side of the host and sacrificer). This suggests that the contest between "praiser" and "reviler" with the others. At least this is implied in Rāma's statements that partaking of the food from another varṇa brings about a change of varṇa among the partaker's progeny in the second or third generation. It might be interesting to compare on this point Held's theory on the origin of the classical varṇa from tribal clan organization (G. J. Held, *The Mahābhārata: An Ethnological Study* [Leiden, 1936], chap. 1).

c19.s6.34

originally was an important feature of the ritual in general, not just of the mahāvrata in its classical form. This conclusion is further strengthened by the fact that in the pañca- and ṣaḍdhotṛs we find an abhigara. Indeed, in the latter we even find two *yajñasya abhigarau*, which probably means both abhigara and apagara (*TĀ* 3. 6. 1; 5. 1).

c19.s6.35

25. *TB* 1. 2. 6. 7: "These (sacrificers) cause upheaval (*udvāsikāriṇaḥ*), these have caused misfortune (*durbhūta*)."

c19.s6.36

26. Insofar as sacrifice still involved the death of the victim, the actual killing was removed from the place of sacrifice, the victims being immolated in a separate shed outside the ritual enclosure. Even so, from the point of view of the classical ritual, it could only be viewed as an embarrassing breach, that is, an "error." Hence the connections between violent death in sacrifice and the concept of the ritual error (see my article "Vrātya and Sacrifice," *Indo-Iranian Journal* 6 (1962): 22–24).

c19.s6.37

27. *ŚB* 11. 4. 2. 17–20.

c19.s6.38

28. Cf. *PB* 15. 6. 5; *ĀpŚS* 21. 9. 7–9, with Caland's notes. This tenth day seems to have been a problem for the classical ritualists. It is called *avivākya*, "on which no declaration of errors should be made." However, only *AB* 5. 22. 5 gives this rule simply. The other texts discuss at length whether "declaration" is or is not to be made, the conclusion being that it is to be made. The central problem, however, seems to be another one, By whom is it to be made? The term *avivākya* implies that a declaration is to be made, but by somebody else. Thus *AB* 3. 35. 4 says that no "declaration" of possible errors in the recitation of the āgnimāruta śastra (in the normal Soma sacrifice) is to be made and that (therefore) one should provide for a separate "declarer" (*tasmād āgnimārute na vyucyam, eṣṭavyo vivaktā*), whom "one thus makes into a bridge for passing," meaning that the "declarer" takes the onus of the error or, originally, the onus of death. (One may also interpret the passage as an unresolved mīmāṃsā, simply stating the two theses). It would seem that the problem arose with the elimination of the contest, verbal or otherwise, from the classical ritual.

c19.s6.39

29. Cf. *PB* 4. 9. 14; *ĀpŚS* 21. 11. 13ff. *KātyŚS* 12. 4. 19–20 makes the reviling of Prajāpati the substance of the brahmodya and calls it *aguṇākhyāna*, tale of the negative qualities. *AB* 5. 25 and *KB* 27. 5 give, instead of blame, the enumeration of Prajāpati's "bodies" ("eater of food and mistress of food," "the fair and the beautiful," etc.), thus eliminating the controversial nature.

c19.s6.40

30. As such it occurs in the brahmodya hymn *RV* 1. 164. 33.

c19.s6.41

31. Cf. *PB* 17. 5. 1; *TS* 2. 5. 1. 2; *KS* 12. 10.

c19.s6.42

32. *AB* 7. 27–28.

c19.s6.43

33. *AB* 7. 27. 1 (*pāpasya* . . . *karmaṇaḥ kartāraḥ, apūtāyai vāco vaditāraḥ*)

c19.s6.44

34. The word *itthaṃvid* recalls the well-known phrase (found especially in the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*) *ya evaṃ veda*, "who knows thus," namely, the connections or identifications of the cosmic with the ritual elements. In our passage, the knowledge does not seem to refer to identifications so much as to antithetical relations, essential to the verbal contest.

c19.s6.45

35. The story is used to legitimate the separation of the varṇas, who should not eat each other's food, that is, should not maintain commensality. But it fails to explain why the kṣatriya is excluded from the Soma drink, whereas Indra, as Rāma Mārgaveya explains, later won back the Soma drink at Tvaṣṭṛ's sacrifice. The difficulty seems to be that Indra regained the Soma drink in a contest, which is out of the question in the classical ritual. Moreover, the doctrine of the sacrificial drink proper to each of the varṇas seems to have originally referred to each of the four classificatory groups having charge of a particular kind of food, which is exchanged 36. The fact that the dispute develops into a treatise on food does not mean a later accretion but is quite consistent with the central concern of this contest (the goods of life). It may be noted that the mahāvrata is also consistently considered as (Prajāpati's) “food.”

c19.s6.46

37. Indra, as Bergaigne already noted, is about the only god in the *Ṛgveda* whose existence seems to be doubted. See *La Religion Védique*, (Paris, 1963) reprinted. 2: 166.

c19.s6.47

38. *Yám smā pṛchánti kúha séti ghorám, utém āhur naíṣó astíty enamsó aryáḥ puṣṭī́r víja ivā́ mināti, śrád asmai dhatta, sá janāsa índraḥ.*

c19.s6.48

39. Oldenberg in his *Rigveda-Noten* admits to some doubt, but he does not go into the matter.

c19.s6.49

40. Cf. *RV* 8. 100. 3; 5. 30. 1; 6. 18. 3; 6. 27. 3; 8. 64. 7; 10. 22. 1.

c19.s6.50

41. Cf. H. P. Schmidt, *Bṛhaspati and Indra* (Wiesbaden, 1968), 237f. Schmidt specifically refers to Indra's priestly characteristics, also indicated by epithets sometimes given to Indra, for example, *ṛṣi*, *kavi*, *vipra*. What is of interest to us here is Indra's apparently shifting nature. Schmidt wants to harmonize these shifting traits into a single consistent image of a king-priest. My approach is different in that it emphasizes as essential Indra's ambiguity and alternation between the two roles, corresponding to the alternation and exchange between sacrificial patron and brahman.

c19.s6.51

42. *RV* 5. 30. 2: *Ávācakakṣam padám asya sasvár.*

c19.s6.52

43. *RV* 5. 30. 3: *Védad ávidvāñ chṛṇávac ca vidvā́n váhate 'yám maghávā sárvasenaḥ.*

c19.s6.53

44. *RV* 6. 18. 3: *Ásti svin nú vīryàm tát ta indra, ná svid asti, tád ṛtuthā́ ví vocaḥ.*

c19.s6.54

45. Cf. also the questions “Where is the bull?” “To whose Soma drink will he come?” and “Who is nearest to you at the time of recitation?” (*RV* 8. 64. 7–9). Similarly, *RV* 10. 22. 1–2, where the question “Where is Indra's fame heard, among which people is he heard of as an ally” is followed by the triumphant answer “Here Indra's fame is heard.”

c19.s6.55

46. Cf., e.g., *RV* 4. 24. 3; *PB* 9. 2. 22.

c19.s6.56

47. *TB* 1. 4. 6. 1: *Ékaiko vaí janātāyām índraḥ. ékaṃ vā etáv índram abhí sám sunutaḥ, yaú dvaú saṃ sunutáḥ. prajā́patir vá eṣá vítāyate, yád yajñáḥ. tásya grā́vāṇo dántāḥ, anyatarám vā́ eté saṃsunvatór nī́rbapsati.* Cf. in this connection the formula, recorded in the *Sāmavidhāna Brāhmaṇa*, for success in a verbal contest in the gathering (pariṣad): *Rājanvān aham, arājaskas tvam*, “I have the king (on my side), you have no king” (2. 7. 13).

c19.s6.57

48. From this point of view, a separate investigation—which cannot be undertaken here—of terms like *mṛdhravāc*, *avāc*, *vivāc* might be worthwhile. See Kuiper, “The Ancient Verbal Contest,” 273. On *saṃsava*, see chapter 2, section 3.

c19.s6.58

49. *RV* 8. 100. *Prá sú stómam bharata vājayánta, índrāya satyám yádi satyám ásti, néndro astī́ti néma u tva āha, ká īm dadarśa, kám abhī́ ṣṭavāma;* Verse 4: *Ayám asmi jaritaḥ pásya mehá.*

c19.s6.59

50. *Yám krándasī saṃyatī́ vihvā́yete páré 'vara ubháyā amī́trāḥ, samānám cid ráthan ātasthivā́ṃsā nānā́ havete, sá janāsa índraḥ.* The image of the two on the same chariot seems to be an expression for the two partners bound together in the common endeavor of the cosmic fight for the goods of life. The sacrifice is equally a battle, albeit that in the classical conception there is no opposite party. It is interesting, though, that the vedi in the classical animal sacrifice should have the measurements of a chariot (*ĀpŚS* 7. 3. 7).

c19.s6.60

51. Cf. *JB* 2. 1: *Yām imāṃ (vācam) śreṣṭhinas tūṣṇīm āsinasyaiva jijñāsante*. On the *śreṣṭhin*, see W. Rau, *Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien*, (Wiesbaden, 1957), 74.

c19.s6.61

52. See chapter 2, section 3; Heesterman, "Vrātya and Sacrifice," 27ff.

c19.s6.62

53. On the connection of the sacrificer's ritual birth and his dakṣiṇā distribution, see J. C. Heesterman, "Reflections on the Significance of the dákṣiṇā," *Indo-Iranian Journal* 4 (1959): 241ff.

c19.s6.63

54. See J. C. Heesterman, *The Ancient Indian Royal Consecration* (The Hague, 1957), 141; also below, chapter 10, section 6.

c19.s6.64

55. See above, section 4.

c19.s6.65

56. The king, though, is beaten, according to the White Yajurveda (See Heesterman *Consecration*, 141.

c19.s6.66

57. Ibid., 103ff.

c19.s6.67

58. On this point, cf. Oberhammer, "*Beitrag zu den Vāda-Traditionen*," 72.

Linked texts (16)