The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c9.6

c9.6

The solution of the enigma, the bráhman itself, is not explicitly stated. It remains hidden in the antithetical relation between the elements of the enigma. For instance, the brahmodya hymn *Ṛgveda Saṃhitā*. 1. 164 consists of a series of antithetical formulations without the antithesis being resolved. Thus in verse 6 it is asked: "What is the One in the form of the unborn that keeps apart these six spaces?"⁶ This question is not answered by a clear-cut definition of the unborn one, such an answer is not even called for. The point at stake here is the often recurring problem of the one and the multiple. The "solution" of the problem is contained in the antithetical relation of the unborn one and the six that it keeps apart. Since the solution is in a way already given, no explanatory answer is called for, but an equally or even more aptly antithetical rejoinder showing that one has "seen" or "found" the crucial relation is required. Thus verse 10 has recourse to similar terms for "encoding" the solution to the problem in an even more ingenious way: "Upholding the six mothers and the six fathers, the One stands upright not being wearied by them".⁷ In this way, the central relation is ever further circumscribed by increasingly ingenious formulations, without a final definition being given. Even in the one case in this hymn where a question is followed by a direct answer, the answer is no less enigmatic than the question, couched as it is in antithetical terms. The question, "I ask you the farthest limit of the earth, I ask you the navel of the world, I ask you the seed of the stallion, I ask you the highest place of speech,"⁸ has to be answered by an equally enigmatic formulation of the relations between the elements: "This *vedi* is the farthest limit of the earth, this sacrifice is the navel of the world, this soma is the seed of the stallion, this *brahmán* is the highest extension of speech."⁹