The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c6.s3.1

c6.s3.1

This solution seems to be the leading principle that shaped the classical ritual. It is graphically described in the story of Prajāpati's contest with and final victory over Death. The *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa*⁴⁰ tells this story as an explanation of the classical form of the mahāvrata ceremony. In its classical form, the mahāvrata is a normalized Soma ceremony, but it has preserved a complex of markedly archaic rites: different kinds of contests (a chariot race among others), dancing, singing, drumming, lute playing, and copulation. The *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa* relates that Prajāpati and Death competed with each other through rival sacrifices. In this contest, Prajāpati had as his "weapons" (*yajñāyudhāni*) the liturgy of the classical, normalized Soma ritual (*tad yad yajñe stūyate, yac chasyate, yat pracaryate*). The arsenal of Death consisted in the archaic rites (*yad vīṇāyām gīyate, yan nṛtyate, yad vṛthācaryate*). A long time the outcome of the contest remains undecided, but finally Prajāpati overcomes his rival through the discovery of the symbolical and numerical equivalences (*saṃpad, saṃkhyāna*). This meant that Prajāpati, by means of the symbolical and numerical equivalences, brought the ritual "weapons" of Death under the same denominator as his own "weapons."