The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.11

c7.11

In these myths, there is still another element which should retain our attention. The cosmic essence is not with the sacrificing gods; they have to obtain it elsewhere, violently breaking up the primordeal unity of the cosmos. The point I want to stress is that this act is placed in the context of an agonistic festival. *Ṛgveda* 10. 131. 4–5 tells us that Indra and the Aśvins drank together with Namuci. Makha's name became synonymous with the systematized, nonagonistic sacrifice from which the rival has been excluded. It is characteristic, however, that the ritual myth makes him participate with the gods in a contest for preeminence; preeminence comes first to Makha, who wanting to withhold it from the gods, flees, bringing about the result we saw.²¹ Similarly in Viśvarūpa's case, sacrifice and violent contest are combined. In the myth of Dadhyañc, there is no mention of a festival but only of a teacher-pupil relation, the Aśvins inducing Dadhyañc to teach them the secret *madhuvidyā*, the knowledge of the honey beverage, which is mythologically synonymous with his horse head. The secret knowledge they obtain seems also to involve the knowledge of severing and restoring the head—they cut off Dadhyañc's head to replace it with the horse head and vice versa.²² Equipped with this knowledge, they are able to restore the head to the sacrifice for the benefit of the gods, obtaining a share in the Soma as their reward.²³ Thus the element of festival, though not directly connected with the way in which the Aśvins obtained Dadhyañc's secret, is not completely absent. Moreover, it would seem that the teaching of the secret of the *madhu* is mythologically equivalent to a madhu revelry.²⁴ Neither is the notion of contest absent, though it is again dissociated. Dadhyañc himself is a great asura-slayer according to *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa* 3. 64: At the mere sight of him the asuras fall prostrate, and, characteristically, have to pay with their heads (*taṃ ha sma yāvanto 'surāḥ parāpaśyanti te ha sma tad eva viśīrṣāṇāś śerate*); by means of his bones Indra produces the same effect.²⁵ It would seem that it is not Dadhyañc at the center of the ritual, but the asuras, whose heads are severed. Moreover, the place where the head is found, Saryaṇāvat, is connected with Kurukṣetra, the scene of the battles of devas and asuras, Kauravas and Pāṇḍavas, as well as the place of sacrifice of the gods.