rddha in the Mahbhrata

Mrkaeya’s efforts on indradyumna’s behalf play on a standard relationship between brahmin and king: with brahmin assistance, rituals take place to supply the royal patron with the nearest thing to eternal life. The early Vedic ritual (yaja), with its bloody offerings to the gods, was, whatever else it might have been, an expensive patrilineal dinner party aiming at the acquisition (and celebration) of health, wealth, sons, fame, heaven. Sons and heaven are intimately connected, since one’s own descendants are particularly well placed to hold one in high esteem after one dies. Typically – although this is apparently not the case with indradyumna, and hence perhaps his problem – such remembrance is institutionalised and ongoing within the family; a gvedic hymn to agni says, ‘Vouchsafe us high renown, o Jtavedas, and may i be immortal by my children’ (jtavedo yáo asmsu dhehi prajbhir agne amtatvám aym // gveda 5.4:10, tr. Griffith). all the kings in Vaiapyana’s vaas are remembered in the recital to their descendant Janamejaya; and so, famous on earth, they are alive in heaven. and the vaa is told at a bloody ritual satra.