20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

638 MADHAVI KOLHATKARWhen the sacrificer pays homage to the āhavaniya fire, he announceswith the mantra:“Even if I am becoming a kṣatriya, I am not going away from all thesedeities of the holy power. Therefore may they not take away from me allthese things. With all these things, I am becoming a kṣatriya. May themerit of my acts remain with me. I am the same kṣatriya and, after thesacrificial performance, I will remain a kṣatriya.”Thus, by these offerings, the kṣatriya sacrificer regains his lordly powerand sets it into operation again without losing the fruit of the sacrificialperformance.Besides the iṣṭāpūrtasyāparijyāni and the ajītapunarvaṇya offeringsthere is one more rite, viz. the punarabhiṣeka mentioned in the 37 th chapterof the AitBr. It is also prescribed to redress the sacrificer and bring back tohim his kṣatriyatva.From the description of these rites it becomes clear that even though thesacrificer is considered to be an embryo, and the embryo as a brāhmaṇa, heis not born as a brāhmaṇa. From the embryonic stage itself he returns to hiskṣatriyatva 5 . What can be the reason of it?The rivalry between the kṣatriya and the brāhmaṇaIn the Vedic literature various references are found which point towardsthe rivalry between the kṣatriya and the brāhmaṇa. The AitBr also is not anexception to it. Just before the description of the rājasūya, in the Śunaḥśepalegend Varuṇa accepts Śunaḥśepa as the offering instead of Hariścandra’sson saying:bhūyān vai brāhmaṇah kṣatriyāt / – Better is a brāhmaṇa than a kṣatriya.Further at 34.4 it is said:One who consecrates himself is born again from the sacrifice. The holypower does not oppress the one who has recourse to the holy power.5Regarding the embryonic state of the sovereign, ELIADE (1963:39 ff.) hasexpressed his opinions in following words: “According to recent interpretation, theinstallation of the Indian king, the rājasūya, included recreating the Universe. And infact the various stages of the ritual successively brought about the future sovereign’sreversion to the embryonic state, his gestation for a year, and his mystical rebirth asCosmocreator, identified with both Prajāpati (the All-God) and the Cosmos. The futuresovereign’s embryonic period corresponded to the maturation process of the Universe,and, in all probability, was originally related to the ripening of crops. The second phase ofthe ritual completes the formation of the sovereign’s new (divine) body. The third phaseof the rājasūya comprises a series of rites whose cosmogonic symbolism is sufficientlyemphasized by the texts”. This view might, however, cause controversy.