The Efficacy of Sacrifice

This book analyses the sacrificial world view of the Vedic Brahmana texts with particular attention to the Aitareya Brahmana. The question in focus is how these texts argue for the efficacy of the Vedic sacrificial acts; how they built up legitimacy for sacrifices that became more and more elaborate, time consuming and costly. The main strategy of the Brahmana texts is to explain the power of Sacrifice as resting upon an intricate web of correspondences between entities within and outside of the ritual enclosure. The directions of these correspondences are mainly from the ritual realm to entities within categories such as Cosmos, Varna, Animals and Man. Of these, Man constitutes the most important category, and within it the breaths (i.e. the vital powers of man) occupy a prominent place. The frequent use of breath, or the breaths, as the goal of the sacrificial rituals, however, initiates a process that undermines the intricate system of correspondences. The sacrifice becomes dependent on human interiority both for its efficacy (the knowledge of the correspondences) and for its goal (the vital powers of man).