The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c4.s4: 4
The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c4.s4
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- English
4
c4.s4.1
Here the classical brahmin comes into his own. However, he does not do so primarily in a priestly capacity, for he would risk his exclusive attachment to the transcendent rule of the śruti by attaching himself to a patron. Instead he is the archetypal single sacrificer, practicing by and for himself the injunctions of the śruti's transcendent order. From there, the road leads straight to the interiorization of the ritual order. Even when eating his meal, he does so as a sacrifice in the internal fires of the breaths (*prāṇāgnihotra*), thereby realizing in himself the absolute order of the śruti.¹² The ideal brahmin is a renouncer turning his back on the world in order to find transcendence in himself.
c4.s4.2
The turning point where the sacral nexus of conflict, violence, and death was cut through can perhaps best be characterized as an "axial breakthrough''.¹³ The once unitary world of agonistic sacrifice was definitively broken and thrown open by the rift between uncompromising transcendence and mundane reality. The axial breakthrough did not, however, restructure the world. It posed a transcendent order that, like the renouncer, turned its back on the world. Having no other meaning than its internal, "rational" order, it left the world to its age-old devices of magic and meaning, to ambivalence and conflict. The mundane sphere remained very much—in Max Weber's terms—an "enchanted" world. But the momentous difference was that the sacral nexus of sacrificial strife had lost its ultimate validity and legitimizing force. These now belonged exclusively to the transcendent order and consequently were taken out of the world. The shimmering potency of the sacred and the numinous was not eliminated but was vitally impaired by the glaring light of renunciatory transcendence—be it the transcendence of ritualism or of another, "heterodox," but no less demanding absolute order.
c4.s4.3
From this point on, there was no way back to the unitary world order. Though the Vedic ritualists desperately tried to infuse their transcendent order with meaning and relevance, the encompassment of the worldly sphere could not be achieved anymore.¹⁴ It is only man himself—ideally the brahmin—who can make the connection by alternating between worldly life and submission to the rule of ritualism. Or he may opt for the path of renunciation and leave the world for good. Indeed it is on this point that Vedic ritualism exercises its enduring appeal. It does not require man to leave the world once and for all but allows him to return to his mundane concerns. It remains open to man's life in the world even though it cannot encompass worldly life. This may well be the secret of the Veda's pivotal position and the meaning of its being the hallmark of "orthodoxy."