ABSTRACT
Among the many contributions of Frits Staal to science, his study of the Vedic Agnicayana ritual, published in the splendid two volumes of Agni, the Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar, has the status of a landmark. 1 It is an achievement which marks the culmination of the scholarship of generations of Sanskrit scholars, including that of Frits Staal himself. At the same time, the publication has marshalled an increased interest in ritual studies and has directly contributed to their present renewal. At the heart of this scientific revolution lies the encounter between the study of texts - such as the Veda - and living traditions of ritual performance. For a long time the study of these two approaches were separated. Text scholars - philologists and historians - did not do fieldwork, whereas field workers such as ethnologists and anthropologists did not read texts. Yet in many civilizations great ritual traditions are based on both textual and oral transmission. In these cases, it often takes a scholar steeped in classical learning to recognize the importance of the living practice. That this has taken so long may be because, as the Chinese proverb puts it: 'The horse that can journey ten thousand leagues is less difficult to fmd than the person who can recognize such a horse.' But once the proof had been established, the significance of the breakthrough was recognized, not only by scholars the world over, but also by the Indian government. Frits Staal was honoured by President Indira Gandhi, to whom he personally presented a copy of Agni.
