Sacred and divine kingship

In Interpreting Ancient Egyptian Narratives, Martin Pehal applies structural analysis to four New Kingdom narrative compositions. The study explains the strong configurational character of ancient Egyptian (mythological) thought which has the ability to connect various ontological levels of human experience with the surrounding world into complex synchronic structures. These symbolical systems are shown to be mediating between the various cultural paradoxes which were inherent to ancient Egyptian society. Axial role in this process is attributed to the institution of positional kingship represented by the Pharaoh. Its transformative function is also put into relation to the special status of female characters who are shown to play the part of the “powerful powerless ones” further personifying the aspects of the mediating function of myth. Gradually, the study outlines a genuinely Egyptian “structural net” of basic mythemes and explains in what way it was possible for such a system to change and incorporate foreign mythological motifs especially from the Near East.

In this paper, I argue that the Norman Anonymous's Christocentric idea of kingship constitutes essentially a variety of that ancient conception of royal mediation which is hallmarked by the Hellenic and early Imperial idea of nomos empsychos. In the first part of my paper, I outline the basic features and sources of this Greek concept and, in line with Kantorowicz's still authoritative analysis, I claim that the Norman Anonymous did know some of those sources that handed this idea down to the latter ages. Then, in the second part of my paper, I offer a systematic overview of the Anonymous's idea of politics with a special view to his idea of kingship.

The chief aim of this essay is to posit a well-known Mesopotamian royal and divine epithet, ušumgallu "great dragon," as the source behind Ezekiel's enigmatic description of Pharaoh in 29.3, hattannīn haggādôl, "the great dragon." This relationship sheds new light and meaning on an old problem: why does Ezekiel refer to Pharaoh as a dragon? Rather than viewing this prophetic expression as a pejorative, the cognate evidence argues for the converse by rooting it in an enduring tradition of regal titles. Replicating Akkadian ušumgallu (Sumerian UŠUM.GAL) as efficiently as possible and drawing upon Israelite cosmological history (viz. Gen 1.21a), Ezekiel feigned including Pharaoh within a venerable, long line of Mesopotamian kings and deities to receive this title. Instead, and as is characteristic of Ezekiel's rhetoric, he upended the putative associations of the "great dragon," thereby exposing its true subordinate position under the hegemony of YHWH

This essay explores intimate relationships between Buddhism and power in contemporary Thailand. Considering practices like divination and spirit mediumship as well as more orthodox contexts like kingship and the monkhood, it argues that Thai Buddhism cannot be divorced from the race for political influence and material wealth. The essay ultimately investigates the role of religion in legitimizing social hierarchy and economic inequality in the kingdom. It also illustrates how Thai Buddhism offers opportunities for resistance, as people from the periphery appropriate idioms of morality to challenge the status quo.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the theoretical connotation of the idea of our digital body surviving the death of our natural body, advocated by such evangelists of digital afterlife as Bell and Gemmel. For this purpose, I will explore the seminal notion of 'two bodies in one' first minutely analyzed by Ernst Kantorowicz in his The King's Two Bodies, which details the emergence of the legal concept by which the king has both a natural body and a mystical body (corpus mysticum) understood as the everlasting polity. To explore the possibility of applying this notion to ideas concerning the body in the digital era, I will elaborate on two additional concepts, namely, the concept of diarchy in traditional authority, as proposed by Rodney Needham, and Toyo Ito's concept of the natural and digital body originating from his peculiar view of contemporary architecture. Through the method of abductive comparison, I will discuss the limitation of Bell and Gemmel's concept of an everlasting digital body. I will discuss the intrinsic lack of institutionality upon which the very notion of the two bodies of the king relies. I will introduce the concepts of the corpus mysticum digitale, a figure which, in the time of the decline of the power of ritual, legitimizes the dead as the collective entity that lives eternally but also anonymously.

Following a piece published in the previous issue of this journal analysing the nature of sacred kingship in 17th century Ayutthaya, this article proceeds to show how these tensions in the performance of royal office shaped King Narai's response to Christian proselytism in the 1680s. This involves a consideration of his increasing residence in Lopburi; his fractious relationship with the Buddhist monastic order; his desire to innovate in the field of astrology and chronicle writing; the appeal of French culture and monarchical grandeur; and the possibility that his metaphysical worldview underwent a significant shift towards deism. With the exception of the latter, for which the evidence is dubious, all these themes helped stimulate hopes among the French that his conversion was indeed a real possibility. This was largely an illusion: while Narai chafed within the confines of his role, and remained curious and cosmopolitan in his tastes, there was no great structural crisis which the French could take advantage of, and nor were they able to precipitate one.

For almost three thousand years, Egypt and Mesopotamia were each ruled by the single sacred office of kingship. Though geographically near, these ancient civilizations were culturally distinct, and scholars have historically contrasted their respective conceptualizations of the ultimate authority, imagining Egyptian kings as invested with cosmic power and Mesopotamian kings as primarily political leaders. In fact, both kingdoms depended on religious ideals and political resources to legitimate and exercise their authority. Cross-cultural comparison reveals the sophisticated and varied strategies that ancient kings used to unify and govern their growing kingdoms.

Experiencing Power, Generating Authority draws on rich material records left behind by both kingdoms, from royal monuments and icons to the written deeds and commissions of kings. Thirteen essays provocatively juxtapose the relationships Egyptian and Mesopotamian kings had with their gods and religious mediators, as well as their subjects and court officials. They also explore the ideological significance of landscape in each kingdom, since the natural and built environment influenced the economy, security, and cosmology of these lands. The interplay of religion, politics, and territory is dramatized by the everyday details of economy, trade, and governance, as well as the social crises of war or the death of a king. Reexamining established notions of cosmic and political rule, Experiencing Power, Generating Authority challenges and deepens scholarly approaches to rulership in the ancient world.

see articles' section below for my two articles in the volume.
Abstract:
""Nicht erst seit dem Einsturz des Historischen Archivs der Stadt Köln sind Archive und ihre Rolle als Träger von Erinnerung, Repräsentation, Wissenskonstruktion und Herrschaftspraxis von Interesse. Die Autorinnen und Autoren beleuchten diese Zusammenhänge mithilfe eines erweiterten Archivbegriffs, der Akten, Sammlungen in Bibliotheken und Museen, aber auch Diskurse umfasst.

15 Beiträge, 11. Abb.
252 Seiten.""

This chapter focuses on history writing about the Eastern Tibetan kingdom of Nangchen based on newly published local chronicles that legitimize Nangchen as an autonomous power centre, opposing official state views on its peripherality. These historical narratives centre on an idealized concept of kingship deeply rooted in the Tibetan Buddhist orthodoxy, myth, and ritual. The contemporary remembering of the legitimate Nangchen kings' lineage transcends a revival of traditional historiography or nostalgia, and has the capacity to repair the broken connection with local tradition and to re-emphasize the value of the landscape as its container. The narrative return of the good kings becomes an important factor in the reconstruction of local identity.

The fi xed fi gures of kingship expressed in the rituals, and the fl exible event-and actor-based depictions presented in the " royal " narratives off er two contrasting portrayals of kingship in Nepal. We aim at outlining their internal dynamics, starting with the centralisation of the state (late-18th–mid-19th centuries), through the examination of the major royal ritual and the analysis of a royal chronicle. At the centre of these two realities of the kingdom stands the person of the king. In each confi guration, his puzzling position at the crossroads of several identities raises questions about the agency of this polymorphous personage in the functioning of the kingdom. This exploration will lead us to fi nally address the gradual simplifi cation of the fi gure of the king over time, which culminated in the straightforward and opposite statements foreshadowing his end, as either an incarnation of Vishnu or as an anachronistic authoritarian and demonic being.

in: Coppens, Filip; Janák, Jiří; Vymazalová, Hana (eds),
7th Symposium on Egyptian Royal Ideology:
Royal versus Divine Authority, Acquisition, Legitimization and Renewal of Power. Prague, June 26-28, 2013
(KSG 4.4), WIesbaden (2015), 145-175.
[To comply with copyright requirements, this is not an entirely true reproduction of the published text, with changes to illustrations and tables].

The Ernst Kantorowicz’s personal writings are held at the Leo Baeck Institute Archives in New York City. The “Phases of Medieval Rulership” is a little corpus of unknown pages where the German historian had drafted in the 40’s of the 20th century the project of a new book which ultimately remained unpublished. In this article the author analyses the contents of this book comparing different manuscript versions and explaining the historian’s version of Medieval history in terms of political theological rulership.

"The Roman principia with chapels of the Standards, the Genius castrorum and the Imperial cult in Egypt are of special interest. There were some examples of principia with such chapels and temples. As a rule, these monuments were built not earlier than at the end of the 3rd century A.D., during the Diocletian’s reign. These examples are found in such fortresses as ‘Abu Sha’ar, Dionysias, Narmouthis, el-Kab, Nag el-Hagar and Tell el-Herr. However there are some principia which were erected early in the 1st – 3rd centuries A.D. in such Roman fortresses of Egyptian Eastern desert as Mons Claudianus, Maximianon and Qasr Banat. The most interesting example of principia was located in the Roman fortress which was built around the Luxor temple at the beginning of the 4th century A.D. There the temple of the Imperial cult and Genius castrorum with wonderful paintings became the centre of the significant late Roman fortified ensemble.
One could suppose that main part of principia in Egypt have more common features with civil Imperial cult temples of the 2nd — 3rd centuries A.D. and their Hellenistic prototypes than earlier examples of these monuments. This fact can be explained by the general tendency of monumentalization of these edifices in the Roman Empire on the whole during the period of the 2nd – 3rd centuries A.D. The architecture of the principia became more luxurious because of increase of the Imperial cult’s significance.
On the one hand, these principia were influenced by the Roman military culture which was connected with creating camps and fortresses. On the other hand they were impacted by the Orient and hellenistic cults of the kings. The architecture of the Roman Imperial cult temple in Luxor was connected with some aspects of the ancient Egyptian cult of divine kingship. The architectural peculiarities of these monuments and iconography of their visual art which appeared in the case of these influences gave some effect on the Christian culture. Such elements as apse, ciborium or baldachin and nimbus got a wide expansion in the Christian art and architecture. Some of these features came to Rome from the culture of the ancient Orient. Therefore temples of the Imperial cult and Genius castrorum in Egypt are examples of the connection between art of the ancient Orient and Byzantine, early Christian and Medieval art and architecture."

Our current understanding of Balinese political mechanisms during the pre-colonial period is imbalanced. Most recent studies either emphasize the performative ritual aspects of Balinese courts or the genealogical texts to reconstruct the social, political and religious environment of pre-colonial Bali. While both methods have provided valuable insight into Balinese statecraft, scholars employing these methods often downplay the role of art historical evidence. My research is the first comprehensive art historical case study of the Bale Kambang at Puri Semarapura.

This work examines the meaning and significance of the Bale Kambang, both art and architecture, to posit the function of the site within its historical context. By placing the Bale Kambang within this historical and cultural milieu, there is convincing evidence to suggest that the Bale Kambang was significant for royal attainment of spiritual power and essential to the maintenance of a king’s realm.

Pocos hombres han dejado una huella tan grande en su paso por la historia y la política como Luis XIV de Francia. El llamado rey sol encarna el punto álgido del absolutismo monárquico, desenlace insoslayable de una Francia devastada por las guerras religiosas, que sólo podría hallar paz y prosperidad bajo la figura de un gran monarca, legitimado desde nada menos que lo divino. Con un incomparable sentido del deber, pero también un paternalismo autoritario manchado por la soberbia, logró hacer del francés la lingua franca de occidente, expandir las fronteras galas, hacer de su querido Versalles la capital de la política europea y ganar tanto renombre para que el mismo Voltaire lo describa como el digno sucesor de Augusto.
En tiempos como el nuestro, donde lentamente presenciamos la desaparición de los Estados nación como únicos e indiscutidos factores políticos, debemos volver atrás a su momento de esplendor, nada menos que en el reinado de Luis XIV, para entender mejor el presente. En la época de la desconfianza en lo estatal y los funcionarios, debemos retornar a la era de aquel monarca que personificaba la grandeza del buen gobierno. Es entonces donde surgen las preguntas de ¿Por qué fue necesario el poder concentrado en una sola persona? ¿Qué intenciones se escondían tras la creación de Versalles? ¿Cuáles eran las razones políticas detrás de la legitimación divina de la monarquía francesa? Es el propósito de este artículo el encontrar una respuesta a estos interrogantes y así comprender mejor el pensamiento detrás de la figura
que pudo ser el símbolo de toda una época.
La bibliografía utilizada serán libros de Medrano y Sabine para un contexto histórico y político, y las obras de Bossuet, Voltaire y el mismo Luis XIV para el desarrollo exhaustivo de la teoría política descripta. Sin desmerecer la bibliografía ya mencionada, me reservo el derecho a utilizar otras fuentes no especificadas en el presente papel.

Explores Aquinas’s attempt to show that kingship is both the best and safest form of government and the implications of his teachings for classical rationalism. Aquinas’s alternative to the Socratic tradition attempts to reorient the desire for honor that characterizes political life, away from the honors of politics, and toward the unlimited good of God. In doing so, Aquinas both attempts to remove the limits on the good allowed by a political life, and brings into question the claim that the life of philosophy is the best way of life.

Aquinas aims at overturning the ancient account that philosophers have the right to rule as kings, while at the same time exploring the ground for theologians to make this same claim.  De Regno thus preserves kingship as the best form of government, even as it restricts the purist form of this regime to matters of theology.  By having the reader compare his support for theological kingship with his prescription for a mixed regime in the political realm, Aquinas lays the ground for a fuller consideration of the relationship between classical rationalism, theology, and political life.

The essays in Reading the Gospel of John’s Christology as Jewish Messianism: Royal, Prophetic, and Divine Messiahs seek to interpret John’s Jesus as part of Second Temple Jewish messianic expectations. The Fourth Gospel is rarely considered part of the world of early Judaism. While many have noted John’s Jewishness, most have not understood John’s Messiah as a Jewish messiah.

The Johannine Jesus, who descends from heaven, is declared the Word made flesh, and claims oneness with the Father, is no less Jewish than other messiahs depicted in early Judaism. John’s Jesus is at home on the spectrum of early Judaism’s royal, prophetic, and divine messiahs .

"Representations", N. 129, Winter 2015.

The essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the Mausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years, focusing on the unique biological science that developed around this project, and the unexpected political role this body has performed.

Kings of Disaster is a comparative, ethnographic study of the political systems of the the Bari, Lulubo, Lokoya, Pari and Lotuho, peoples who inhabit the East Bank of the Nile in Equatoria, South Sudan. The political systems are structured by the principle of consensual antagonism, the king operating as the unifying antagonist of the combined segments that constitute his people. Regicide as it is practiced by these peoples is a direct consequence of the king’s role as its political antagonist.
Kingship ritual is an unmistakeable makeover of the scapegoat mechanism, the model of consensual antagonism as René Girard first formulated it: he king’s installation is framed as the capture of an unwilling victim while his natural death is dramatized as a double transfiguration, as demon and as god. 
The book has four parts.  Part One presents the theoretical framework and the historical context of the kingdoms.  The dozen or so kingdoms where information was collected vary in size – between a thousand and a hundred thousand subjects per king. They practice a dual system of governance; on one side are the king/rainmaker and his clan, clients and other followers, on the other side the monyomiji, the age-grade of middle-aged men who rule as a corporate group for a fixed period varying from 10 and 24 years.The book is about the dynamic relationship between the kings and their peoples, the latter being normally represented by their monyomiji. The two core responsibilities of the monyomiji are warfare and the management of the relationship with the king. They ensure that the king provides the community with a timely and well-dosed supply of rain. They keep him happy by meeting his demands since royal anger is bad for the rain.  When the rains fail, the monyomiji carry out investigations and take measures against any group or person suspected of intentionally or accidentally stopping the rain. If drought persists, the blame will be put on the king. The monyomiji will confront him, if necessary use force in obtaining a confession regarding the cause of the disaster. During a king's career, periods during which he is worshipped like a god alternate with episodes of vicious confrontation when he is demonized, tortured, or even killed when a stand-off with the monyomiji escalates beyond repair.
Part Two, ‘Dualism’, analyzes the nature of relations between territorial and age- and generation based groups using Evans-Pritchard’s model of complementary, segmentary opposition. When disputes between these groups cannot be resolved by negotiations, the conflict parties have a stick fight. The winner is put in the right. A more or less fragile balance of power defines intergroup relations.   
Part Three, ‘Centralism’, deals with the relationship between king and people. Both king and monyomiji are jealous of their power and keenly intent on making the power balance tilt in their favour. As a rule, the balance will swing back and forth, one year the king is calling the shots, the next it is the monyomiji. 
In situations of war, when the confrontation between different kingdoms overrides internal divisions, king and monyomiji make common cause. When kings have the full support of the warrior class they obtain a de facto control over the legitimate use of force - the Weberian criterion that distinguishes states from pre-state social formations. A state-like configuration emerges that has characteristics in common with historic states: regimes of king and monyomiji who try to stay in power by preventing the junior generation from taking over. This has resulted in outright repression of the juniors when they resist the new regime, or in an exodus of juniors  as happened in Imatari in the middle of the nineteenth century and in Lafon in the beginning of the twentieth century.
From an evolutionary perspective these regimes can be considered cases of attempted endogenous state formation. They refute the widely held consensus that the first states could only have been the result of conquest.  The evidence also refutes the time-honoured anthropological consensus that there is a deep divide between the power dynamic animating stateless, segmentary, societies and the one that makes centralized, hierarchical, systems tick. The closing of ranks between the king and monyomiji, evoked in the previous paragraph, is a perfect example of complementary opposition: the more inclusive social segments that compose the political body of the kingdom merge when confronted with a political entity of the same order of inclusion.
When a war is over, there are two possible scenarios of the aftermath. In case of a victory of  the kingdom. (the merger of king and monyomiji), either another enemy will be picked to strenthen the emerging state configuration, or, depending on the phase  in the cycle of generational succession and the restlessness of the junior generation, king and monyomiji  may prioritize internal stability by consolidating their grip on the upcoming generation.
If a war ended in defeat, the coalition of king and monyomiji was likely to fall apart, offering chances to the new generation, leaving the king weakened and vulnerable. Local oral traditions tell about monyomiji abnegating their king altogether to the point of abolishing the institution of kingship (Chapter 15). These traditions are evidence of a back and forth between horizontal segmentary antagonism and vertical king-people antagonism.  By their proneness to rivalry in the royal family, coupled with the antagonism between territorial segments and successive generations,  these early kingships striving for statehood, remained  very fragile. This fragility may be the reason that examples of similar configurations are rare in the ethnographic literature. 
Part Four zooms in on the king as scapegoat. In his role as his people’s unifying adversary, the king is the ultimate target of blame when the community is stricken by disaster. The case-studies show that the killing of the king is not an impulsive, collective act. The tension builds up slowly and is political. Alternative wrongdoers are identified and all sorts of remedies are tried  before the collective anger converges on the king. In line with the logic of segmentary antagonism the killing community justifies the murder as an act of revenge. Kings of Disaster presents and analyzes more than twenty cases, some of them contemporary to the field work, in which kings or queens lost their lives in confrontations with their united subjects. These cases are undisputable evidence that the practice of regicide on which Frazer had built his majestic The Golden Bough really existed. The practice was disputed by later anthropologists who pointed at the ambiguity of the ethnographic evidence and argued that early observers had been misled by their colonial perceptions. 
The king is not only a scapegoat in what is fundamentally a political game. His career as king is ritualized as a deferred victimhood. From the day of his installation (staged as a capture, a deliberate contamination with his people’s diseases, or a condemnation), he is his people’s hostage. If he has not been a victim of a confrontation over drought before, his blessings are expected to be released at the time of his natural death. The king’s death is ritualized as a process in which the divine and the demonic powers inhabiting him are separated so that only the beneficial ones are retained for the community. The ‘effective divinity of the king’ is made to coincide  with a process of dying in successive stages and extending over at least one cultivation cycle counting from the king’s last breath, through the bloating and decomposition of his corpse, to the final exhumation  and placement of the skull or bones in a shrine.
For the Bari, Lulubo, Lokoya and Lotuho digestion is the model for the purification of the blessings; so they plug the orifices of the king’s body so that disorderly forces do not escape. For the Pari – and their well-documented Shilluk relatives to the north - the focus of control is on the king’s breathing which must be stopped before it stops by itself. This strongly suggests that the much-debated Shilluk practice of having the king suffocated when he is on the brink of death belongs in the same category of practices as the plugging of the orifices of his more southerly colleagues. The suffocation ensures the orderly release of the king’s blessings; it is not a vestige of regicide, nor a piece of colonial imagination.
Kings of Disaster demonstrates that Girard’s theory of social cohesion not only offers an explanatory context to the institution of kingship, but also to the political systems of the Nilotic Sudan as a whole. The dynamic of complementary segmentary opposition which is so prominent in these societies, is just another instance of consensual antagonism or, in the terminology used in the book, of the ‘enemy scenario of the scapegoat mechanism’.

Last year, I stumbled upon an intriguing piece of The Lord of the Rings / The Last Kingdom crossover fanfiction, entitled “The Heredity and Magnanimity of King Alfred”. In this Aragorn/Alfred mashup, fanfiction author Freikugels sketches a scene in which an ideal king in disguise sits in the corner of an old Inn; thinking, pondering, softly singing. As the title already indicates, at the end of the story, passers-by confirm that this ideal king is King Alfred of Wessex. But throughout the story, by his thoughts and the short conversation with Merewenna, it becomes clear that all the indications of his heredity - his inherited characteristics, title and rights - as well as of his magnanimity - the virtue of being great of mind and heart - are expressed by means of identity markers and citations of Aragorn. Apparently, for Freikugels, the image of the ideal king is Aragorn. Therefore, in this essay, I would like to explore how the popular image of Aragorn is expressed to echo ideas around friendship, loyalty, heredity, and kingship, that resonate with the heredity and magnanimity of the Ideal King.

Dans une perspective ethnologique, il s’agit de comprendre comment les Moundang du sud-ouest du Tchad, dont le dispositif rituel relève de la royauté sacrée, se convertissent aux Religions du Livre musulmanes et chrétiennes. De fait, deux territoires distincts sont mis en comparaison à travers la figure d’un migrant religieux, le Prophète Isaac. Du clan de la cour au sein de la constellation d’Eglises protestantes de la Sudan United Mission créée par le missionnaire allemand Karl Kumm, il chemine entre la commune de Léré au Tchad et Jos, « capitale » évangélique de la Middle Belt au Nigéria pour fonder sa propre Eglise « indigène » chez les siens. Du rejet des rites traditionnels des premiers protestants à l’inculturation catholique francophone puis à la « diabolisation » de la part des pentecôtistes, les différentes stratégies missionnaires européennes et américaines sont étudiées. Ce travail est ainsi construit suivant trois axes : en premier lieu, la pluralité religieuse en territoire tchadien montre la réappropriation des Moundang qui se convertissent tantôt dans l’ouverture aux horizons ecclésiastiques proposés par les missionnaires, tantôt dans le syncrétisme où l’espace et le temps sont réaménagés selon les rituels locaux. Le deuxième axe distingue certaines formes de résistance ou de permanence des cultes et pratiques moundang de la divination à la sorcellerie ainsi que la transformation des rituels royaux tels que les trois cérémonies agraires, et les funérailles. Enfin, dans une troisième partie, l’analyse de la recomposition ethnique du Mayo-Kebbi offre l’occasion de saisir pourquoi et comment la diaspora tchadienne se réfugie vers le Nigéria, le « Géant africain » en se modélisant sous la forme du communautarisme, de réseaux et/ou d’une forme de rhizome suivant les générations. Des premiers migrants de 1930 aux étudiants du XXIe siècle, des villages moundang recréés à Numan à l’Eglise tchadienne à Jos dans l’Etat du Plateau, nous tentons de montrer comment la violence symbolique rejetant les dogmes et pratiques de l’autre religion se transforme en affrontements meurtriers afin de conquérir les différents territoires, ainsi que les ressources économiques et politiques.

One of the most interesting features of political tradition of pre-modern Northeast India was the presence of local powers tracing their descent from demonic beings. Historical evidence suggests that the demonic royal genealogy was proclaimed at a juncture of transition from pre-state to state society, though the time of transition varied according to the  area where it occurred. The nuclear area of the early state of the lower Brahmaputra valley witnessed it in the seventh century, and the spread of state formation from the lower valley to other remote areas of the northeast after the thirteenth century facilitated the dissemination of this lineage model through the agency of brahmins. Asymmetry between the cultural authority of migrant brahmins and peripheral rulers was crucial in this process. Focusing on the Chutiyas and the Dimasas, the local powers established in the fourteenth-century Sadiya area and in the sixteenth-century Cachar hills respectively, the present study will discuss how the descendants of demons were finally approved as kshatriyas; what strategies were employed in this unusual form of legitimation, and how deviation from the traditional demonic lineage occurred. It will help us understand the specificity of political traditions in the peripheral regions of South Asia which cannot be subsumed under the overarching theoretical framework of legitimation.

The Bible is the only corpus including explicit anti-monarchial texts. This paper will focus on the Law of the King (Deut 17: 14-20) in an attempt to distinguish between two layers found in it: an anti-Assyrian – anti-imperialistic law dating to the seventh century BCE, and a secondary addition reacting to the conditions prevalent in the post-destruction era (sixth century BCE).

A fresh and original translation from Sanskrit of the dashrajnya hymn (hymn 7.18 of Rig Veda) describing this defining battle between Aryan king Sudas and his Aryan as well as non-Aryan foes. The decisive battle led to the uprooting of many tribes from the Sapta Sindhu area.

Many existing beliefs are shown to be merely due to misunderstandings. Further, it is shown that the existing translations fall well short of the true meaning.
For example, no Matsya tribe was involved in this battle.

Ordo sacerdotum aestimatur deorum <ordine, ut deus> maximus quisque. Maximus videtur Rex, dein Dialis, post hunc Martialis, quarto loco Quirinalis, quinto pontifex maximus. Itaque in soliis Rex supra omnis accumbat licet; Dialis supra Martialem, et Quirinalem; Martialis supra proximum; omnes item supra pontificem. Rex, quia potentissimus; Dialis, quia universi mundi sacerdos, qui appellatur Dium; Martialis, quod Mars conditoris urbis parens; Quirinalis, socio imperii Romani Curibus ascito Quirino; pontifex maximus, quod iudex atque arbiter habetur rerum diuinarum humanarumque 1 .