Focusing on When and How “the Brahmins Won”: The Case of dakṣiṇā in Reformed and Non-Reformed Vedic Sources

For some years now some eminent Scholars have been arguing that the officiant-patron distinction and the “orthodox” sacrificial arena might have been realized for the first time by the bearers of the Yajurveda culture. Concurrently, since 2007 onwards, Bronkhorst has in many ways proved that not all ancient Indian institutions necessarily descended from the “Brahmanical” mainstream. In this paper, we show how even what has been commonly considered as an original and evergreen institution, i.e. the dákṣiṇā as priestly gift had indeed been developed especially by the Yajurvedic texts in line with the Brahmins’ action of “re- inventing themselves”. As already demonstrated in Candotti et al. 2020 and 2021, the earliest occurrences of the term testify a completely different ritual and social context. The evolution of the concept in the Yajurveda is grasped through the analysis of every detail of the different versions of the same rite or prayer including the term; this allows us to highlight the intriguing progressive editing process of the handed-down texts.