The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.2

c5.2

To begin with, we may view tradition as the way society formulates and deals with the basic problems of human existence. In other words, it is the way in which society comes to terms with the insoluble problem of life and death, including such life and death matters as food and water in a world of scarcity.¹ In this respect, of course, it is not different from modernity. Since the fundamental problem of life and death is truly insoluble, it has to be attacked, formulated, and dealt with each time anew under a different aspect. Tradition therefore is and has to be bound up with the ever-shifting present. Hence the irritating flexibility and fluidity of tradition.