The astonishing similarity that characterizes agonistic customs in all cultures is perhaps nowhere more striking than in the domain of the human mind itself, that is to say, in knowledge and wisdom. For archaic human, doing and daring are power, but knowing is magical power. For him/her all particular knowledge is sacred knowledge – esoteric and wonder-working wisdom, because any knowing is directly related to the cosmic order itself. The orderly procession of things, decreed by the gods and maintained in being by ritual for the preservation of life and the salvation of human – this universal order of rtam as it was called in Sanskrit, is safeguarded by nothing more potently than by the knowledge of holy things, their secret names, and the origin of the world. For this reason there must be competitions in such knowledge at the sacred feasts, because the spoken word has a direct influence on the world order….