Hymn X gives the host-grammar that organizes hymns XI through XIII: the king receives the wandering Vrātya as a guest, honours him as superior. The teaching here is the practical core of the Vrātya cult and the institutional reason this text survived. A king who hosted such a wanderer obtained legitimacy from him; the wanderer in turn was sustained by the king's hospitality. The same instinct runs through Sanskrit kingship-literature for the next two thousand years (the king who feeds renunciates is the true king) and through Sufi institutions of the later Islamic world, where the wandering qalandari is hosted by the sultan as a touchstone of authentic kingship.Wave RR anchor — Vrātya hospitality / kingship-legitimation
Verse 3 of Hymn X is the structural heart of the Vrātya theology: 'From him, verily, sprang Priesthood (Brahmanya) and Royalty (Kshatra). They said, Into whom shall we enter? Let Priesthood enter into Brihaspati, and Royalty into Indra.' The verse claims that both the priestly and the warrior varnas have their origin in the Vrātya. The doctrine that emerges is unusually consequential: the two highest castes are not naturally distinct but are downstream of a single source that is neither priest nor king. The later Indian discussion of the relation between brahman and kṣatra (which runs through the Brāhmaṇas, the Mahābhārata's debates between Bhīṣma and Yudhiṣṭhira, and the medieval kingship-treatises) has this verse as one of its textual anchors.Wave RR anchor — XV.10.3 Vrātya as source of priesthood and kingship / brahman-kṣatra discussion