[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 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.s2: 10 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c7.s2 - **Language:** English ### 10 ### [c7.s2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.1) We have come to the end of our search for the severed head. That it had to be a long-winded one is a measure of the ancient ritualists' achievement; their ritual science was devised in order to eliminate the agonistic exchange of the "head of the sacrifice." ### [c7.s2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.2) Of course, one is entitled to speak with Rönnow of human sacrifice, belonging to a "pre-Vedic," "asuric" religion. It is not my intention to go into the correctness of this terminology. The question I am concerned with is that of the relation between the two conceptions of sacrifice. Briefly, then, it would seem to me that the “Vedic brahmanic” conception originated orthogenetically in the agonistic festival. Rather than “asuric,” the latter might be called “daivāsura”.⁷⁰ Rationalizing away the agonistic element which locked the two parties together, the ritualists were able to break the dualistic pattern of cyclical exchange and make the sacrificer independent from rivalry and cooperation with the others. ### [c7.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.3) That this was an orthogenetic development is shown by the fact that the śrauta ritual is built up with the disconnected elements of the dualistic pattern which were restructured in a “monistic” system. Piecing together the elements, we can, to a reasonable extent, reconstruct the ancient pattern. It would, I think, be possible to deal with the whole śrauta corpus from this point of view; the endless variety of the śrauta ritual could possibly be reduced to a single cyclically recurring pattern, in which the disconnected elements would fall back into their original place. This paper may serve to illustrate the original pattern as well as the way in which the Vedic ritualists broke up this pattern and “recycled” its disjoined elements. A further example can show how the rejoined ritual still reveals the original cycle that turned on the winning of “the head of the sacrifice.” ### [c7.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.4) In the śrauta ritual, the prestigious horse sacrifice is preceded by the building of the brick fire altar, on which the sacrifice is to be performed. In the \*Taittirīya Saṃhitā\*, the mantras for the horse sacrifice are inserted in a seemingly irregular way in the exposition of the fire altar. Now it is obvious that the agnicayana not only precedes the horse sacrifice, it is in its turn preceded by a “horse sacrifice” which must deliver the horse’s head for the altar. Further, the clay-fetching raid recalls the roaming of the horse before the sacrifice. This can, in my opinion, explain the lack of a separate brāhmaṇa for the horse sacrifice in the Black Yajurveda; it is already covered by the cayana brāhmaṇa, especially by the parts that deal with the clay and the heads. We have here the disconnected elements of the original cyclical pattern that was broken up into single sacrifices. Where the Taittirīyakas still indicate the original unity, the Maitrāyaṇīyas and the Kāṭhakas have completely separated the mantras for the horse sacrifice. ### [c7.s2.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.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 ### [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. ### [c7.s2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.7) I think here we touch the basic terms of the contradiction between "brahmanic" thought and unreformed reality, as when the Gandhian ideal of non-violence was unavoidably attended by actual violence. It is this interaction between the two contradictory poles that is the pivot of Indian civilization, past and present. ## Linked texts (2) - [Mānavaśrautasūtra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.vedanga.kalpa.srauta.manava.11.1) — Sanskrit - [Taittirīyasaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.samhita.krsnayajur*taittiriya) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2) · Pramāṇa