The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c9.34

c9.34

Moreover, truth and nontruth seem originally to have been involved in personal form at the king’s unction and enthronement. One of the king’s office bearers is the *pālāgala*, the “messenger,” who is explained as *anṛtadūta*, “nontruth messenger.” His counterpart is the *satyadūta*, the “truth messenger,” who brings the message of the king’s unction (that is, of his manifestation, his birth) to the rival kings (*pratirājan*) and exhorts them to put faith in the king (*śraddhā*).⁵⁷ This rite is explained by a reference to the contest of devas and asuras. Depositing truth (*vācaḥ satyam*) with the Aśvins and Pūṣan, the devas conquer the asuras by untruth (*anṛta*). The original idea would seem to be that the two functionaries, *anṛtadūta* and *satyadūta*, represent the two opposite champions, the negator and the affirmer. The king is born out of the antithetical relation between satya and anṛta. Arising out of embryonic limbo and combining in his person both satya and anṛta, he manifests himself as the personified solution of the antithesis, like his prototype Indra.