The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s3: 10
The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c8.s3
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10
c8.s3.1
The story of the deluge holds the origins of the ritual. As is proper for the flood story, it founds the new dispensation of the śrauta ritual, putting its critical central part, the sacrificial meal, on a new footing. But even so, the Iḍā ceremony continues to be viewed as a breach, a tearing apart. Our texts suggest that this refers to the intrusion of an alien element into the ultramundane śrauta ritual, namely, the eating of the meal, which properly belongs not to the śrauta ritual but to the *pākayajña* of the worldly domestic ritual.³⁶ But at the same time, it clearly serves as a reminder of the paradox that the life-giving ritual is intimately connected with life's opposite, with death and destruction. Manu's unworldly ritual perfection is utterly meritorious, but it is barren. The tale of the fish confronts him with the internecine
c8.s3.2
<!-- Note marker ³⁶ has no footnote text on this page --> vitality of life in the depths of the waters. After this vitality has reached its destructive acme in the deluge, life, recreated and expanded through Iḍā has to admit the breaking asunder, the rending apart of Iḍā. In order to perpetuate life, the new ritual order of the universe established after the flood must still concede a place, however surreptitiously, to evil and destruction.