The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.12

c5.12

On one hand, hierarchy seems to be based on real relations such as become apparent in the acceptance of food and drink, and these relations are tied up with the distribution of power and focused on rights in the soil, which are managed by the "kings." On the other hand, where the brahminic "way out" is followed, not relations, but isolation becomes the key word and hierarchy consequently breaks down. But it would be wrong to see the two principles simply as two different traditions. For notwithstanding their obvious irreconcilability, the brahminic ideal of separateness and independence is still recognized as the ultimately valid one. Thus Mayer's rajputs, when they maintain close relations with the lower "allied castes," are far from denying the ultimate validity of the brahminic ideal that would require them to keep themselves apart. Their excuse is that they need servants, with whom they have to keep close contacts;¹³ in other words, as mediators of power and prestige they cannot help having to live in a world made up of relations. Equally, the fact that the brahmin is deemed to be above the right-left dichotomy means the recognition of the ideal he stands for as the ultimately valid one.