[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.s2.4 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s2.4 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s2.4 - **Language:** English ### [c8.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.4) Now communal meals are hardly tolerated in the solemn (\*śrauta\*) ritual. The perfectly anodyne Iḍā ceremony is the last vestige of the sacrificial meal, and even it is not taken in common anymore. But where the meal survives, there is an abundance of cow's meat, as in the sacrifice for the "householder" (\*gṛhamedhin\*) Maruts.³⁰ A similar case is the rite for establishing the sacred fires (\*agnyādhāna\*), where the participants gamble for the parts of a cow.³¹ That such cows are the tangible substance of the Iḍā may by now seem fairly obvious, notwithstanding the reticence of the texts. But there is one instance where they almost seem to give away the game. This is in the rite of the Soma cow's seventh step. When a line is drawn round the ghee-filled footprint with a view to taking it up, the accompanying mantra says: "Here I cut the neck of the evil spirit, here I cut the neck of him who hates us and whom we have".³² The ghee-mixed dust of the footprint is equated with cattle, and therefore this rite is supposed to make the sacrificer rich in cattle. If we further consider that just before, when the ghee libation was made, the spot of the footprint was called "the head of the goddess Aditi" and "head of the earth," we can hardly avoid anymore the idea of a killing or immolation of cattle, that is, of cattle belonging to one's rival or enemy. Appositely, the next mantra claims, "With us be wealth." - [Previous: c8.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.3) - [Next: c8.s2.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.5) - [Up: c8.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2) ## Linked texts (1) - [Śatapathabrāhmaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.brahmana.satapatha) — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c8.s2.4) · Pramāṇa