[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c5.14 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.14 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.14 - **Language:** English ### [c5.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.14) Nor does this ideal reference point resolve the conflict on the higher level of an all-encompassing ideology. For the brahminical rejection of relations obviously cannot be reconciled with the system of relations that society is based on, nor can it encompass them. The "kingly" order immanent in social relations and the transcendent brahminical order are irreconcilably opposed to each other. This unresolved conflict is the form Indian tradition has developed to express and deal with the insoluble problem with which all tradition is essentially concerned. For, as the oldest ritual texts already make clear, society is felt to be based on the alternation of life and death, and consequently participation in society's web of relations is felt to be tantamount to continual involvement with death. The radical way to escape from this situation was resolutely to turn one's back on society and thereby to overcome death.¹⁴ That this is an impossibility is hardly relevant. The point is that tradition can only deal with the insoluble by being itself an unresolved conflict. - [Previous: c5.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.13) - [Next: c5.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.15) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.14) · Pramāṇa