The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.s1.2

c7.s1.2

Baudhāyana is again the most helpful. According to him,⁴⁸ the human head is the head of a vaiśya who has fallen in battle; the same rule obtains for the horse’s head. Now it seems clear that to obtain such heads, there is actually no way round going into battle oneself and fighting for it. In passing, one may recall the Homeric fights for the body of the fallen hero. In other words, the human head is the head of an enemy conquered in battle. It stands to reason that this can not be said explicitly in the language of the systematized ritual. Nevertheless, this is exactly what the texts do say, but, by disjoining the elements of the procedure, they have, one might say, taken the sting out of it. If we rejoin the elements, the complete picture emerges again.