Hindu priesthood has its origins primarily in the Vedic religion, in which the primary focus was the ritual tradition. The Indo-Aryan-speaking invaders of northwestern India in the middle and late second millennium BCE were apparently divided into a threefold hierarchy of social classes with religious as well as economic functions, the priestly class being uppermost and distinct from the warrior, and both of these relatively small echelons ranking above the masses, the pastoral, artisan, and agricultural producers. Kings and chieftains were evidently drawn from the warrior tradition, but the function of sovereignty itself involved divine-human relationships perceived as sacrificial exchanges and therefore the sacred work (karman) of an elite priesthood, whose members came from the priestly social class (brāhmaṇa). That this sacerdotal elite was diversified according to long tradition, being responsible not only for a wide range of cultic functions but also for the...