[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c7.s2.6 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.s2.6 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.s2.6 - **Language:** English ### [c7.s2.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.6) The ritualists' enterprise was a bold attempt at forcing a way out into outer-worldly freedom and life untainted by death and destruction. They could not revolutionize the hard facts of reality, nor did they try. They tried instead to create a separate world, the ideally ordered world of rationalized sacrifice. Obviously the two spheres are irredeemably contradictory; the important point, however, is that in this way the ideal of freedom and life without death could be stated clearly and held out as a promise to man. Henceforth reality had to be formulated and justified with reference to this ideal. - [Previous: c7.s2.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.5) - [Next: c7.s2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.7) - [Up: c7.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.6) · Pramāṇa