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Ganesh Thite
remala disturbed in the mind and would wait for an opportunity to revolt Thus there remains constant possibllity of war between a brother and brother And when an actual war takes place as for instance in the case of Yudbişthura and Duryodhana, the whole family will then be des. troyed Therefore instead of performing the Rajasaya immediately after having come to throne and creatlog enemies in one's own family, the king should rather try to expand the kingdom and perform the Agvamedha (seo for example the story of Rama mentioned above) Or the king should perform some other sacrifice like Yalsnava sacrifice (see eg the Duryodhana's story, in which he is advised to perform the Valsnava-sacrifice which of course could not be a sufficient substitute of the Rajastya) This seems, in my opinion, the reasoning behind the antipathy towards the Riyasaya
The main points in this paper may be repeated in the following way
1 The Vedic literature prescribes the Rajasuya for asserting one's kingship.
2 Even though in the Vedic literature and in the later literature, this sacrifice has been praised as a great sacrifice, in both of those literatures It is also described to be dangerous to oneself and to all the people in general The later literature regards it as the root cause of war in particular and of all the evil disasters in general
(3) In both the Rajasuya and Advamedha there is a posslbility of wars, But in the citual of the Rajasuya the sacrificer treats his own relatives and members of family in an insulting manner They are ritually dented any chance of being kings even in the future Thas the Rajasaya causes innor #ruggles which would lead to ruin of the sacrificer's whole amty and of his own people
