The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.27

c5.27

An old and well-documented illustration of this phenomenon may be found in the ancient indian *vrātya* bands described in the ritual texts.²⁵ In that context they form a problem, because they do not fit into the well-ordered and rational system of ritual expounded by these texts. From the point of view of the inner conflict of tradition, their occurrence in this context is not so strange. Two points are of particular interest. In the first place, the *vrātya* band is not simply an exceptional feature deviating from the normal system, for it clearly ties in with practical needs. Its activities center around transhuming and raiding expeditions necessitated by the scarcity during the lean season. Thus we are told that such bands set out in autumn after the monsoon harvest in search of food for their men and cattle and return before the next monsoon. The second point is that the *vrātya*, for all his "heterodoxy," is still the starting point for the brahminical model of withdrawal and renunciation. In this connection, it does not seem fortuitous that in South India left-hand groups were involved in the clearing and settlement of previously forested areas and that "warriors" were generally members of the left division.²⁶ Here we can observe the connection with the problem of state formation, especially when we take into consideration the transformation of the South Indian polity into a warrior-dominated and warfare-oriented one in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.²⁷