Customer Reviews

Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a work of comparative mythology that manages to be relevant to political theory. According to Georges Dumezil, there is a story common in the mythologies of the ancient world that goes something like this. Among the many gods, there is a special division of authority between two, a jurist-priest and a magician-king. This twosome was called by the Norse Tyr/Odin and by the Romans Numa/Jupiter, but as an ideal type Dumezil calls them by their Vedic names, Mitra/Varuna. Mitra the jurist-priest represents juridical sovereignty; Varuna the magician-king represents political sovereignty. The kings of the world in governing their cities and states (political orders) reproduced the form of this dual sovereignty: the Rex and the Flamen, the Raja and the Brahman. Among flawed gods, demigods, fallen angels, and certainly frail kings, and political orders, whose imperfection should never be coupled with omnipotence, the power to make laws and the power to execute them ought/ have been so often separated and configured as "agonism." The figure of Mitra, in secular form, combines what in Montesquieu's scheme are legislative and judicial powers; juridical sovereignty meant employing pacts in peace as both a reasoned judge and legislator, preserving society through the validity of contracts and fulfillment of formal responsibilities. Mitra is patron to the tender-minded idealists: the principled, optimistic, religious, and dogmatic. Varuna is by contrast a patron for the tough-minded realists: the pessimistic, irreligious, fatalistic, flexible, materialistic and skeptical. Varuna rules during times of war and rebellion, he executes and binds in entirely physical ways. Names meaning "Emergency" "Necessity," "Security," or "Preservation" are given to the dangerous struggle for existence and also to the period that Varuna rules. For the rule of Varuna, while accepted as necessary, carries pains of its own. The questions, the difficult questions of emergency governance, then are how Mitra should intervene when Varuna oversteps his duties and curb the "permanence" of Varuna's rules, or how Varuna can secure Mitra's blessings. Max Weber speaks of "Secularization and systematization of legal thought were frequently promoted by laws imposed as a result of wars and their uprooting effects. In the time of war the powers of a leader are much greater than those of a "judge" or law prophet or priest in times of peace. Unlike the Puranic triumvirate of Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva (the creator, preserver, and destroyer), both Mitra and Varuna are figures of preservation. They differ only (and here they differ radically) in their methods of attaining preservation: formalism or contingency. Thus, in my view, this is also an effective originary myth of emergency governance. By the way, Dumezil was something of a fanatic when it came to substantiating his theories. A Romanist once told me that he once cut off the tail of a horse and allowed it to run until it bled to death to relicate an ancient ritual.