The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c4.s5.2

c4.s5.2

In a comparable way, the *Arthaśāstra*’s description of the process of auditing the state accounts harks back to the agonistic festival.¹⁷ But it also appears that the neatly devised bureaucratic procedure falters and finally founders on the crucial point of who shall control whom. The result is again a conflict in which the king must precariously hold his own among his cosharers in the realm, who in Kauṭilya’s formula of the “circle of kings” include not only his allies but his enemies or potential enemies as well. The situation is one of dispersed and conflictive kingship.