> [[heesterman]]. *The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual*. The University of Chicago Press, 1993. > #nopdf ## Excerpts ### :2 > "Rather than a priest, sacrifice calls forth the warrior who finds his privileged arena on the place of sarifice. Originally the two figures, priest and warrior, were not mutually exclusive. They seem, on the contrary, to be intimately related. Thus, the Celtic druid 'is not only priest but also a warrior.' Conversely, the *fianna*, the warrior bands, did not admit an aspirant 'unless he was a poet and had studied the twelve books of poetry.' As often is the case, there is a striking suggestive resemblance with the archaic conditions that have left copious traces in the Vedic texts." ### :13 > "...the Vedic gods themselves are also sacrificers. As the Ṛgveda tells us in an enigmatically involuted phrase, 'the gods sacrificed sacrifice by sacrifice; these were the first oridinances.' This celebrated line refers to the primordial immolation of the cosmic man, who is at the same time identified with the instituition of sacrifice. Here sacrifice has no connection with any gift. Instead, it is the primordial act of cosmogonic violence. [...] the 'charter' of sacrifice as an instituition."