ABSTRACT
Ritual's ordering function extends far beyond common-knowledge patterns that regulate and punctuate our lives. Ritual's power to order life reaches into social systems that are formal, institutionalized, and governed by explicit rules and laws. Desire for invariant ritual order is a strong force within society. Julian Huxley viewed ritualization as the means whereby culture and society impose the kind of order necessary for the creation of shared worlds. The ordering function of ritual seems necessary not only to "fix social life" in the first place but also to restore order when it has been lost. In the Eastern world, the holding to ritual as an order that should be followed out of sacred duty is most prominent, perhaps, in Brahmanic Hinduism. In the Western world, the oldest and arguably most faithful witness to it has been borne by Judaism.
