EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWESTnecessarily more powerful but they owed their position to a new ideology.
The early kings, even if they had inherited their rank as lineage elders,
always derived their legitimacy from an election by members of the tribe.
In the Late Vedic period the king usually emerged from a struggle for
power among the nobility and then derived his legitimacy from the ritual
investiture by their Brahmin priests. The people participated in this
ceremony as mere spectators. This was the time of magnificent royal
sacrifices (rajasuya) and of the famous horse sacrifice (ashvamedha) which
testified to the fact that the king had been able to meet all challenges or
that no enemy had dared to challenge him at all. The cosmic and magic
significance of these royal rites remained of great importance for the next
millennium and influenced the kingship ideology of ancient India.
Indologists have done a good deal of research on these royal rites and
their meaning. They have highlighted the fact that the king was held
responsible for the maintenance of cosmic order and of the fertility of the
earth. But they have paid less attention to the social context of this new
royal ideology. The apotheosis of the king was due to the increasing
internal stratification of Vedic society which gave rise to the mutual
interest of kings and Brahmin priests in guaranteeing their respective
positions. The Late Vedic texts composed by Brahmins make it quite clear
that they were the most ardent supporters of this new idea of sacred
kingship because they expected from the king that he would uphold their
own eminent position in the caste system. Tribes without kings were
mentioned in these texts with disgust. The Brahmin authors of these texts
remembered only too well how the lack of patronage in the Early Vedic
period forced them to go from one tribe to another in search of support.
This could certainly be much better provided by a king whose legitimacy
was based on the ritual sanctity bestowed upon him by the Brahmins.
The structure of this early state was reflected in the ceremonies of the
royal court. The royal sacrifice (rajasuya) was initially repeated every year.
The important personages of the royal court had the honorific title ratnin
(rich in jewels) and the king started the ceremony by paying visits to their
houses. The texts state that he had to do this because they were the ‘givers
and takers of royal power’ (rashtra). First, the king had to visit his main
queen, then the second wife whom he had forsaken because she could not
bear children, and then he visited his favourite wife. In each place he had
to perform a sacrifice. Further visits and sacrifices were due to the head
priest (purohita), the commander of his army (senani), a member of the
nobility (rajanya), the heads of villages (gramani), the bard (suta), the
charioteer, the butcher, the cook, the thrower of dice, etc. Some texts also
mention the carpenter, the cartwright and the runner.
This peculiar list of the ‘jewels’ of Vedic kings has given rise to a great
deal of speculation because it does not show any specific political order or
religious significance. Why was the butcher or the thrower of dice included