[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.s2.3 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s2.3 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s2.3 - **Language:** English ### [c8.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.3) Nevertheless, there are several indications that the Iḍā cow is the immolated victim. The mantras addressed to the victim when it is led up to the sacrificial pole are also addressed to the Soma cow.²⁷ As we saw, Iḍā and the Soma cow are intimately connected with each other. If, then, the Soma cow can be linked with the immolated victim, the link will include the Iḍā cow too. Now Iḍā is Manu's daughter as well as his wife, and ritual mythology has it that Manu's obsessive ritual correctness did not even stop at immolating his own wife. In most versions, Manu's wife is saved by divine intervention, but the \*Śatapatha\* laconically describes her immolation.²⁸ In this respect—as in others—Iḍā recalls the goddess Śrī, Prosperity, who comes forth from the exhausted Prajāpati. The gods want to kill and rob her. But Prajāpati humanely objects that one does not kill a woman; one takes everything from her but leaves her alive. The gods then do just that, leaving her much like the exploited and rejected Iḍā.²⁹ This sorry tale is meant to explain a particular sacrifice, the \*mitravindeṣṭi\*. It suggests that the gods share Śrī among each other at a sacrificial meal—as the participants in any sacrifice share in the iḍā. But, as we saw, the critical point of the immolation is eliminated by Prajāpati's intervention. - [Previous: c8.s2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.2) - [Next: c8.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.4) - [Up: c8.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.3) · Pramāṇa