The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c9.38

c9.38

Truth and nontruth are no longer bound up with the parties in the contest who act out their mutual relation. Instead they have been freed and absolutized. That is, abstract doctrine and individual belief are born. The superior contestant's assertion of himself as the brahman is transformed into the doctrine of the ātman-brahman identification. The rules of the contest, the vāda manual, yield their place to the rules of abstract proof.⁵⁸ By the same token, the reviling antagonist is cut loose from the praising protagonist. The complementary ritual roles make place for mutually exclusive doctrines. It is no longer a question of denying a particular person's (or group's) sacrifice, but of denying the abstract institution of sacrifice. The doctrine of sacrifice is either true or false.