[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) › c8.1 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.1 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.1 - **Language:** English ### [c8.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.1) The flood story, like all myth, is not just an edifying or comforting tale for homiletic purposes. Perhaps we should even say that myth is not the place to look for any comfort or edification. It is concerned with the incompatible, the insoluble, with conflict and disorder. The only comfort myth can offer is to provide us with the words, the terms, the "code" for grasping, mentally and verbally, the perplexities of the human condition. This is no mean thing, but it is not a definitive answer to the problem of existence. Thus it may be too simplistic to see the flood story only as a fable of a new beginning, a cosmogony establishing a new and better order of life. This is, of course, an important aspect of the story. But underneath is the awesome intrusion of chaos and destruction. Even when the flood is interpreted as a cleansing or purification necessitated by the sinful disorder of the world,¹ the overriding motif is the havoc and violence of the catastrophe. In the oldest Indian versions of the flood story, no reason is given at all for the catastrophe and there is no question of any cleansing. This is the more remarkable since the oldest versions of the story occur in the context of ritualistic exposition where purity and purification are constantly recurring features. One would expect the flood to fit in smoothly with the concern for purity, but no connection is made. It is reported as a catastrophe without explanation. The central theme is the intractable antithesis of continuity and violent break, of order and the irruption of chaos. It is, in other words, a threatening story. - [Previous: c7.s2.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c7.s2.7) - [Next: c8.s1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s1.1) - [Up: c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.1) · Pramāṇa