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Asvamedha: The Rite and its Logic

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This is one of the most important books on ancient Indian culture to have been published in recent years. It takes up the problem of the "horse sacrifice" which was an important ritual of ancient India. It shows that originally this sacrifice was concerned with the motions of the Sun as the celestial horse. The sacrifice here refers to the symbolic regeneration of the Sun during the winter solstice.

The book also presents a novel view of the Indian conception of the State and the nature of social organization. I recommend this book very strongly!

I found the book illuminating. Didn't know of this interpretation of the famous rite..

This is a book of first-rate scholarship, that explains many mysteries of ancient Indian ritual. Although its concern is with the "horse-sacrifice", the most important rite of royal ritual in Vedic India, the book successfully explains the basis of all ancient ritual.

First, there is a great deal to disagree with in this work. Personally I think actual vs metaphorical sacrifices were probably equivalent in the beginning, and that attempts to place one before the other largely project modern prejudices onto the past. However, arguing this here would make this review into a very long one. For a short version, it's based on considering the nature of the observations about oral traditions in Orality and Literacy (New Accents) by Walter Ong and The Singer of Tales by Albert Lord. Also, the omission of the scripted "time with the horse" seems to me to to be once again an attempt to sanitize this rite for modern readers. A portion of this piece of the rite, however, is translated in How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics by Calvert Watkins and compared in that work to an Irish ritual that Gerard of Wales mentioned in the Middle Ages.

Finally, I don't think the author's assertion that "asva" could have originally been a word for the sun which was later associated with the horse is tenable in the wake of modern approaches to historical linguistics. Asva is probably cognate with Latin equus and common Germanic ehwaz. The k-s (the satem shift) and u-v shifts are typical of the development of Sanscrit from early Proto-Indo-European generally (compare early PIE *kemtum, -> Latin Centum, with Sanscrit satem for example).

Nonetheless, this is an important contribution to the field for those interested in comparative studies regarding Indo-Europeans, as well as those interested in studying the Vedas themselves. The discussion of performance and meaning is quite compatible with the views on oral traditions in the works mentioned above, and bolsters the view that interpretation is secondary to performance against the backdrop of tradition. Moreover, the interpretation of the horse as universe as a whole provides fertile ground for comparative studies (for example to the world in Norse myth through the sacrifice of Ymir).

Moreover, the attention to detail in the portions of the rite covered are quite fascinating, particularly in the wake of the spacial ritual comparisons between India and Ireland in Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales. The discussion of cycle for cycle substitutions and the like is also worth reading.

On the whole, this is a book that despite my disagreements gave me many "aha" moments. I'd highly recommend it despite the cautions.