The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c4.s2.1

c4.s2.1

Tradition is characterized by the inner conflict of atemporal order and temporal shift rather than by resiliance and adaptiveness. It is this unresolved conflict that provides the motive force we perceive as the flexibility of tradition. Indian civilization offers a particularly clear case of this dynamic inner conflict.⁵ The conflict is not just handled surreptitiously by way of situational compromise. Once we look beyond the hard surface of the projected absolute order, it appears subtly, but no less effectively, to be expressed by the same scriptures that so impressively expound the dharma’s absoluteness.