The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c4.s6: 6

The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c4.s6

Language: English

6 c4.s6.1

But if ultimate authority and legitimacy elude him, how is the king to make his writ run, as he obviously does? Part of the answer is in the nature of kingship itself. At the intersection of the conflicting interests and factions, the king fulfills the connective function that the all-pervading conflict requires. His position, then, rests on conflict, and he cannot therefore be called upon to end and eliminate all conflict. But by his connectiveness, he should keep conflict from becoming schismatic. Hence the constantly shifting lines of conflict schematized by Kauṭilya in his “circle of kings.” It is again the royal ritual of the rājasūya that brings out the connective function of the king. It shows that the essence of the king’s sacral or divine quality—so often ascribed to him by the dharma texts—resides in his connectiveness so long as he successfully fulfills this function.

c4.s6.2

But as we saw, sacrality has been divested of its decisive potency. It is only transcendence that provides ultimate authority, and it is only the brahmin who has access to it. However, because of his renunciatory stance that gives him transcendent authority, he cannot involve himself with the king on pain of losing that authority and becoming no more than the king. In practice, then, the much-vaunted king-brahmin alliance is a restricted formulation of multiple kingship.

c4.s6.3

Here we come upon the Indian formulation of the universal problem of power and authority. To turn power into authority, the king must ally himself with the brahmin, but the brahmin must reject the alliance in order to safeguard the authority for which the alliance was sought. While the king stands for the order of conflict, the brahmin's order is absolute, negating all conflict. The one's order is the other's disorder. The two stand at opposite ends from each other, and there is no mediating priesthood. The dilemma is insoluble, as is the dilemma of the dharma.¹⁸