The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.s2.5

c7.s2.5

We can put the relation between the two concepts of sacrifice in diachronic terms: orthogenetic development of the classical ritual from the preclassical pattern. More important, however, is the synchronic relation. The traces of the preclassical pattern are not just fossilized survivals. The preclassical pattern did not cease to exist. The classical system had to take into account the “preclassical” pattern, which continued to govern reality. Thus *Mānava Śrautasūtra* 11. 1. 4, dealing with the ritual for the acceptance of gifts, gives a mantra for accepting, of all things, a (victim’s) head. The mantra (*candrāya tvā*), not recorded in the saṃhitās, does not look particularly ancient. It does not seem a survival but rather an accommodation, however contradictory, of actual religious practice, where more often than not the victim's head is severed and given away.⁷¹