Vedic Ideals of Sovereignty and the Poetics of Power.

• Position: NEW FROM THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY - Book review

American Oriental Series - aos 90

American Oriental Society, 2007

167 pages, English

Cloth, 10 x 7 inches

ISBN13: 978-0-940490-21-5

$54.00

Vedic Ideals of Sovereignty and the Poetics of Power examines motifs central to the expression of the ideal of sovereignty as it is articulated in Vedic liturgical poetry. Through close analysis of Vedic hymns, exegetical texts; and ritual complexes, the author argues that the language proper to the domain of kingship was gradually adapted to express aspirations for spiritual freedom, and that the culmination of this process is reflected in the doctrines of liberation presented in the early Upanishads.

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Working from the premise that the Rgvedic hymns were composed within the context of a clan-based society, Proferes begins by exploring how liturgical poetry and ritual practice contributed to the negotiation of competing claims for sovereignty within a Vedic polity, helping to regulate and define the interactions of its constituent groups. It is argued that the symbolism of the ritual fire as it appears in the Rgveda and the Atharvaveda articulated the fluid nature of sovereignty in a segmentary kinship society and provided an early paradigm for the exploration of the concept of unity within diversity that would become such a crucial aspect of later Upanishadic thought.

The author demonstrates that the ritual symbolism of the royal unction rite and its accompanying liturgy exploits elements of the natural world such as fire, sun, and water to express a holistic vision of the interaction between human political authority and the powers of the cosmos, thus correlating the processes of nature to the internal operations of human society and ensuring that royal legitimacy was presented as the result of narual law. Through this rite the early Veidc clans symbolically unified themselves in and...