The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s1.6

c8.s1.6

Particularly interesting for our purpose is the way this theme is used in a Vādhūla text and the part fishes play in it.⁹ The gods want to rearrange the universe so that those representing the elements of fire, sun, wind, and waters can take up their residences in the spaces proper to each of them. To that end, they seek to perform a sacrifice, but they are in doubt as to the ways and means of this sacrifice. Agni, the Fire, offers to have himself immolated as a sacrifice (*medha*) to himself. However, when he is immolated, *medha* (sacrifice) and *asu* (life) escape. The sacrifice is then repeated by immolating again the escaped and recaptured medha part.¹⁰ Each time, the double residue of medha and asu escapes taking the form of particular living things. In this way, a double series of life forms emerges through the sacrifice, the medha forms being immolated, while the asu ones—apparently unfit for sacrifice—are left alone. Finally the last medha residue, in the form of rice and barley, escapes, hides in the waters, and is swallowed by two fishes, the rice by a *rohita* fish and the barley by a fish called *caṣa*. The two fishes clearly represent sacrifice. Not only are they equated with the sacrificial substance they have swallowed, but they are also said to carry on their heads emblematic implements of vegetal sacrifice: the rohita fish bears a mortar and pestle, the caṣa a winnowing basket. When the gods finally catch them, the fishes—or rather, the two sacrificial substances, rice and barley—explain that if they are immolated, the sacrifice will be as small as they are themselves. First the gods should allow them to multiply. When the gods ask how this should be brought about, they are given the plough and instructed about agriculture. Only after the rice and the barley have grown and multiplied, do the gods successfully complete their sacrifice for the rearrangement of the universe.