Dynamics of otherness and identity in the Vedic mahāvrata rite: the contest between ārya and śūdra

This paper aims to explore social identity dynamics concerning the Middle and Late Vedic culture, when the proto-Vedic clan-based society came to be dissolved by the emergence of the Kuru hegemony, and Brahmanical ritualization unfolded as the foremost interpretative para- digm of reality, culminating in orthopraxy, so preluding dharmic taxonomies. In particular, the Vedic mahāvrata rite, with its peculiarities, forcedly framed in the śrauta reform, may provide an un- conventional perspective for probing the varṇa system development and the transition from clan- based antagonism to ritualistic Otherness.