An attempt has been made fie re to show that there may be a dynamic interplay between the processes of Sanskritization and westernization which may help us to account for such seeming anachronisms as the high castes, who have had the greatest shake in the old order, revealing a stronger urge for westernization and modernisation than the tower castes, who have had the least stake in the old order,

This is just the opposite of what we have been led to expect on the basis of 'classical' accounts of modernisation.

The process of westernization need not be regarded as an 'irony' but is an important dimension of the total process of mobility and change in Indian society.

THE observation that the Indian caste system is not absolutely

r i g i d and static has l e d progressive­ly to various attempts to explain in systematic terms the manner in which change occurs w i t h i n i t . Per­haps the earliest such altenipt was the observation that a caste may sometimes pay large dowries to give its daughters in marriage to men of some slightly higher caste.' This is the process known as hvper-gamy/" ft has been described and discussed by a l l of the wel l -known ethnographers of India who wrote d u r i n g the last century and the first-part of this century. It forms a major preoccupation of J H Hut-ton's work ( 1 9 4 6 ) .

Imp l i c i t in this concept of hyper-gamy is the fact that cash's who for any reason are able to become upward ly mobile do so by making themselves r i tualIy and occupa-l iona i ly as much like the higher castes as possible and then ratify­ing this achievement by app ly ing their newly-found resources to the contract ing of up-marriages. Once in te rmar r ied w i t h another caste group, yon are inconleslahly equal to i t . Th i s has always been the f inal c r i t e r ion of status par i ty in t radi t ional Ind ian society.

Sanskritization — the Concept

However, upward m o b i l i t y , even in the caste system, is a broader, more pervasive process than is symbolized by the practice of hy-pergamy. The latter may. as a matter of fact, lie seen more as a k i n d of end-product of the overall process, an aspect of the whole phenomenon and nothing more. It in the great u t i l i t y of M N Srinivas's (1056) concept of Sanskrit ization that it automatically puts hyper-gamy in its appropr ia te place w i t h i n an overall process of inter-

caste m o b i l i t y which encompasses not only this act of final rat if ica­tion but also all of the intermediate steps and, indeed, other channels and manifestations of mobi l i ty as well which do not necessarily cul­minate in hypergamy at a l l .

Srinivas's concept rests ultimate­ly ou the notion that the caste sys­tem, like all status hierarchies, causes the low to invidiously com­pare themselves w i t h the high and to try in every way they can to soften, modify, reduce, and even el iminate altogether the basis for these status differences. This is not unique to the Indian caste system. What is unique is the manner in which this process must work itself out in India, given the empi r i ca l nature of the status system that prevails there. It is this w i t h which Sanskr i t i /a t ion comes to gr ips .

Sanskrit ization also, it seems to me. deals w i i h something a l i t t le different than M c K i m M a r r i o t t s

(1955) universalization— parochia-lization' dichotomy. The former subsumes, essentially the same phe­nomena as the latter but uses them for different analytical ends. Mar­riott 's notion is more par t icular ly useful for dealing wi th data of this k i n d when it is being viewed f rom the standpoint of a folk-urban d i ­mension where one may be concern­ed w i t h the process of in t e rming l ing between elite, urban-centered, and local , vil lager-entered cul tura l tra­dit ions, quite aside from the ques­tion of the status implicat ions of this per se Srinivas's concept is rooted p r i m a r i l y in a concern for the latter.

But Srinivas also speaks of a paral lel process, which he terms westernization. Concerning this be observes :

One of the many interesting contra­dictions of modern Hindu social life

945

is that while the Brahmans are be-coming: more and more westernized, the other castes are becoming more and more Sanskritized. In the lower reaches of the hierarchy, castes are faking up customs which the Hrah­nians are busy discarding. As far us these castes are concerned, it looks as though Sanskritization is an essential preliminary to westernization.

Dynamic Relationship However. I believe we can go

farther w i th this notion of Sr i ­nivas" s ami thereby deepen our understanding of the mobi l i ty pro­cess in Ind ian society today. For it seems: probable that at least in some instances, under some circum­stances the relat ionship between Sanskrit ization and westernization is a more dynamic one than even Srinivas makes apparent in his wr i t ings .

Let us realize at the outlet that the caste system is one of the most elaborate attempts at hierarchiza-fion of society ever undertaken by matt. It has left its mark every­where on Ind i an l i fe , but especial­ly it has imbued Indians in general w i t h a finely tuned consciousness of hierarchy per se wh ich does not seem to be disappearing w i t h any pa r t i cu la r haste even among the most modernized, westernized of Indians. Among the latter. this sense of hierarchy merely changes its contours s l ight ly so that it can operate effectively even under con­di t ions of so-called democratic so­ciety. At tent ion to senior i ty and petty permutations of au thor i ty are admit ted by a l l to be unusually ela-borated even in the most ' ra t ional ' and 'progressive" I n d i a n bureaucra­cies The academic w o r l d , where one migh t expect the most moder­n i s e t h i n k i n g to be appl ied in such matters is notoriously hierar-chized not only w i t h respect to the official univers i ty structures hut w i t h respect as wel l to the in fo rma l

Sanskritization and Westernization A Dynamic View

June 24, 1961 T H E E C O N O M I C W E E K L Y

Harold A Gould

June 24 1961 T H E E C O N O M I C W E E K L Y

social structures maintained by students and faculty alike. The charge of "casteism on the campus is so loud and frequent in India that its very persistence and uni­versality makes it almost inaudible.

It is w i th in this setting of perva­sive hierarchical t h ink ing and feeling that the interdependency of Sanskritization and westernization may he appreciated. Srinivas has looked at these twin processes to an important degree from the stand­point of the desire of the lower castes to move upward by trans­fo rming their r i tual and social structure un t i l it conforms more nearly to that of the Brahmana and/or whatever other caste hap­pens to be dominant and, therefore, represents elite status wi th in their experiential ken. Westernizatin, then, is seen p r i m a r i l y as an ' i rony ' by .which the very clean castes whom the lower castes arc aping are g iv ing up the very Sanskritic traits by which the lower castes im­pl ici t ly acknowledge (by t ry ing to adopt them) their super ior i ty .

Westernization — a Necessity It is my suspicion that this hitter

is more than an irony and actually a new and necessary manifestation for the high castes of the age-old preoccupation of people in general and Indians in par t icular w i th hierarchy. This point is to he ap-preciated when we view Sansjkrili-zation and westernization f rom the standpoint of those who are at the top of the scab the Brahmans and certain others — rather than f rom the standpoint of those locat­ed at its bottom or somewhere in its middle reaches.

i f you are t rad i t iona l ly Brahman and you are at the apex of the r i ­tual hierarchy prevalent in a v i l l ­age, or in a region wherein the approximate order ing of the vari­ous castes is reasonably compre­hended by most and acknowledged more or less as the basis of social interaction, then Sanskritization for you means watching the lower cas­tes rising up and up beneath you. As they "o so, by which I mean, as and to the extent that they are able to actually force recognition of and thereby ra t i fy new status pretensions, the social distance bet­ween them and you is diminished.

Years ago, when I first came to Sherupur4 this seemed to be the p l igh t and the compla in t of both

the Rajput and the Brahman mem­bers of the community . Democrati­zation of Ind ian society, part icular­ly since Independence, has opened up opportunities heretofore incon­ceivable for A h i r . M u r a u , K u r m i , K o r i and even Chamar castes to Sanskritize themselves; ( i e , to pur i ­fy their r i tuals, diet, etc) and in general to approach and fraternize w i t h I he h igh castes. Understandab­ly, these long-suppressed and vary-ingly humil ia ted groups have been busy doing just that. In fact, I suggest that one of the pr ime motive-forces behind San.skritiza-l ion is this factor of repressed hostility which manifests itself not in the fo rm of rejecting the caste system but in the form of its vic­tims t r y i n g to seize control of it and thereby expiate their frustra­tions on the same battlefield where they acquired them. Only then can there he a sense of satisfaction in something achieved that is tangi­ble, concrete, and relevant to past experience. If the lower castes re­jected the caste system out of band before acting out their hostilities to it by t r y i n g to master it they would be left wi th a hollow sense of nn-ful f i l lment , a sense that they never successfully attacked and conquered the th ing in terms of which their ideals, their aspirations, their frus­trations, in fact their whole percep­tion of l ife, were formed. Besides this, it is doubtful that they could structure their hostilities and aspi­rations in any other way as yet because of the very fact thai they have remained throughout recorded Indian history il l i terate, cowed p r i ­soners of the caste system. Thei r perception of alternative forms must by definit ion he d im and i n ­decisive.

Old Bases of Power Crumble

Thus, at any rate in 1954, the Brahmans and Rajputs of Sherupur were, speaking to me bi t te r ly about the fust-approaching * rule of the lower orders ' ' In the presence of lower caste persons they would declare that in the 'o ld days' a lower caste man would never dare come as close to a Rajput 's or Brahman's charpai as in fact his listeners were coming at the present moment! T o d a y , respect (izzat) for the h igh caste man has ended,' my informants would loudly pro­cla im. When some K o r i s obtained funds f rom a nearby Communi ty Projact t r a in ing block to .construct

946

a new wel l , the Rajputs regularly stood a t o m f l inging taunts at them for placing their trust in outside agencies (un i fo rmly labelled 'Gov­ernment ' ) who, they averred, wou ld ul t imately betray them and make fools of them—in contradistinction to the Rajputs, of course, who, they assured me, had always scrupu­lously looked after the interests of their lower caste bretheren.

For the Brahmans and Rajputs, it was clearly a matter of seeing the bases of their old power and authori ty melt ing away before t l u i r eyes and being prevented from do­ing much about i t , as indeed they could in the 'old days,' by the i m ­par t ia l hand, of secular govern­ment ". Or looked at f rom the point of view of the thesis being enun­ciated here, these h igh castes were watching anxiously whi le the floor of the status system rose under­neath them with the consequence that the old forms of social distance by winch they bail always differen­tiated themselves f rom their fellow-Hindus were evaporating. As Sr i ­nivas puts it :

The three main axes of power in the caste system fire die ritual, the economic, and the political ones, and the possession of power in any one sphere usually leads to power in the other two. The Brahmans and Rajputs of

Sherupur were losing their po l i t i ­cal and to some extent their econo­mic power" through which for centuries they had successfully en-forced the t radi t ional hierarchical order ing of the castes and the r i tua l distinctions upon which this was based. In fact, the pol i t ica l coup de grace was delivered in February labour on part-t ime basis or fa-of 1961 when for the first t ime secret-ballot elections were held for the office of village pradhan. W i t h the election nf an A h i r , the peren­nial control maintained by the Rajputs, and acquiesced in by the Brahmans, 7 was decisively shatter­ed. The middle and lower castes were jub i lan t , their attitude being v i v i d l y i l lustrated by the comment of a K o r i f r iend, who said w i t h real emotion in his voice, 'The lower castes are coming up now. ' For they saw in this pol i t ical victo­ry the possibili ty of a widened scope for the eventual attainment of status par i ty wi th the Brahmans and Rajputs — a par i ty which my experience w i t h these villagers has demonstrated to me is associated, as

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY June 24, 1961

srinivas says, w i t h the desire to become ever more orthodox and 'clean' in the r i t u a l , commensal, and connubial senses.

Where Westernization Comes in

But even though the Brahmans and Rajputs are clearly losing ground in the status struggle taking place w i t h i n the t rad i t ional caste hierarchy, they are not taking things l y ing down by any means. Th i s is where westernization enters the p ic ture in a manner which is dynamical ly inter-related wi th the events taking place under the rub­ric of Sanskrit ization. For I believe that in p ropor t ion as the Brahmans

• and Rajputs are losing ground in the old caste hierarchy, they are reaching out in a di rect ion we can best call westernization (or perhaps to-day the term 'modernizat ion ' would be somewhat more appro­priate) in order to obtain new sources of status and power which effectively continue to give them the feeling that they are maintain­ing suitable social distance bet­ween themselves and those whom th ry have t rad i t iona l ly defined as low.

Al though not the sole factor res­ponsible, it seems l ikely that this process helps account for the. by now wide ly observed fact that mo­b i l i ty in the direct ion of urban and modern employment is more pre­ponderant, in relative terms, among the high than among the low cas­tes. Edwin Eames (1951) refers to it w i t h some surprise in a village ( M a d h o p u r ) which he studied in

Ut tar Pradesh. He says :

It was assumed . . . that the great-est amount of migration In urban centres would he by members of these castes which had lost their functions in village life . . . and those who were in the weakest economic position in the village . , . However, the largest group going outside the village are Thakurs . . . who are the second largest population group in Madhopur. They are in the top economic position of the village and the owners of the

, land, (pp 13-14)

Oscar Lewis (1955) found the same th ing in a Jat v i l l age near Delhi and his comments on the phenomenon are h ighly pertinent to this discussion :

. . . it is the higher caste Jats and Brahmans at Rampar who have taken the greatest initiative in getting out­side work, who have the best-paid jobs and the greatest number of them . . . If such conditions are prevalent in other Indian villages, it might mean that the inequalities of the caste sys­

tem will be perpetuated, for the mem­bers of the higher castes would be the ones to benefit most in an industria­lized India. (pp 301-302)

In all instances, the real i ty ap­pears to be at wide variance w i t h 'classical1 expectations concerning m o b i l i t y in modernizing societies, where it is hold that the landless and the impoverished are compell­ed to move towards the city in search of cash employment whi le the landed and the well-off are eon-tent to remain proport ionately longer in their rura l habitat.

False Dichotomies

Granted, this latter phenomenon is also occurr ing on a major scale in India today and promises to be­come even more intensified should the rate of industr ia l izat ion materi­ally increase du r ing the next twenty-five to fifty years. It is not necessarv for us to make any choi­ces between false dichotomies in this matter. What is at issue here Is only the surpris ingly h igh preva­lence of elite m o b i l i t y and the correspondingly surpr is ingly low prevalence of low caste m o b i l i t y by comparision with the former. It is thiw which is "unclassicar by con­trast w i th the West.

It suggests that the higher castes arc for some reason if nesting a large an ion ni of deliberate energy in westernization. proport ionate ly much more than the lower castes (at least in villages of the size and situation of Sherupur and those studied by Karnes and Lewis ) . while the low castes are investing a large amount of deliberate ener­gy in Sanskrit ization, propor­tionately much more than the higher castes, or so it would seem. This makes sense if we recognize the pervasiveness of hierarchical t h ink ing and feeling in India and consequently realize that the Brah­mana and Rajputs have l i t t l e choice left to them than to tu rn to wester­nization as a means of main ta in ing the social distance between them­selves and the lower castes which is no longer possible w i t h i n lite o ld order in the face of the Iatters' current abi l i ty to Sanskritize them­selves. If yon are already Sanskri-lized. as are the Brahmans and the Rajputs (although I do not wish to i m p l y that the two are fu l ly equi­valent r i tna l ly or in any other way, because they are no t ) , then you can't go any higher up in the t r ad i ­t ional strat if ication order. If you

947

can't maintain things as they are th rough the appl icat ion of pol i t ical and economic power then you can only go down or accept the notion of equality which, in effect, means accepting the n u l l i t y of the caste system itself and hierarchical rela­tionships in general. This is patent­ly impossible for the high castes, w i t h their deeply embedded con­ception of their inherent super ior i ­ty, and so they must move outside the caste system winch spawned them in order to preserve their pretensions to paramount status in Indian .society.

New Bases of Superiority

This is done in Sherupur and elsewhere by converting their t radi­tional intellectual skills, economic advantages, and nepotic connections into opportunities for obta in ing modern education and what is com­monly called 'service' by which ' is meant a job hi Government (either provincia l or central) or in modern industry. To the extent that they succeed in this endeavour, Brahmans and Rajputs preserve a measure of superiori ty over their lower caste compatriots in their local community (where not more widely) which mere Sanskrit ization is incapable of matching. For the lower castes are without education or any t rad i t ion of learning, they are without much economic power, and they lack welI-elaborated k in ­ship structures which can be ave­nues of connection and mob i l i t y outside the local mi l ieu . Wi thou t these assets, they cannot, hope to at tain very much modern education, much less opportunit ies for "ser­vice". And even in these rare i n ­stances where a low caste f a m i l y does acquire the means they fre­quently turn their resources to the b u i l d i n g up of their t radi t ional status. In the village ad jo in ing Sherupur there is a K o r i who has made considerable money out of the bu i ld ing construction business. He has symbolized his new-found opulence not by becoming a 'mo­dern m a i f but by bu i ld ing a resi­dence in the village which outsides the high castes in its t rad i t iona l architectural style. Furthermore, he is complet ing const ruction of the largest and most ornate dhuratmluda (a rest house for rel i­gious pi lgr jms) in the area, one which eclipses by far the numerous comparable structures thereabout associated w i t h h igh caste benefac-

June 2 4 , 1961 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

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THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY June 24, 1961

tora. The Brahman f a m i l y wh ich resides in the same hamlet s t i l l re­fuses to interact w i t h this Kor i ' s fami ly and the head of this Brah­man household is an official in the Sugar Cane Department of the Government of Ut tar Pradesh!

Sanskritization not Distinctive Enough

We may see this same pheno­menon from the standpoint of the h igh cables themselves. Those families among the Brahmans and Rajputs in Sherupur who have bee unsuccessful in convert ing their t radi t ional assets into oppor­tunities for sons to get a good education and "service" are depre­cated even by their own caste fel­lows on this account. Where Sans-kr i t i za t ion is their only claim to status, they are insufficiently dis-tinct f rom the lower castes, espe­cial ly from the middle groups l ike A h i r and Kurmi who got modest amounts of land out of Zamindar i abol i t ion. As a result. there is much anxiely and f re l l ing on this score w i t h i n the ranks of the Brah-mans and Rajputs. Many a father f rom these castas has approached me in the hope that I might he able to intervene somewhere wi th a business executive or govern­ment official on behalf of a son whom he wants to get placed in "service". Only one lower caslc person has over so approached me and this represents a very un­usual case from many stand­points.8

Strict ly economic grounds are insufficient to explain what is happening and the fact that in Sherupur all outside "while collar" jobs las well as an overwhelming preponderance of all outside jobs) are held by 'he castes who rank highest in the t radi t ional hierar­chy. Tor these high castes have practically a l l the land in the v i l ­lage and are in every material respect inf ini tely better off than their low caste brethren. In fact. I have encountered instances where a high caste f ami ly has urged its son or sons out into the modern job market even where having done so has left the vi l lage farm short-handed and has entailed real economic hardship for the rest of the family . They would rather have a greater propor t ion of the agri­cul tura l work done by the landless castes than is customary, and ac­cept whatever other hardship that

may be involved, if that w i l l as­sure them the ab i l i ty to count among the accoutrements of their contemporary status the fact that one or more of their sons are per­f o r m i n g prestigious work some­where in the modern society beyond the vi l lage. For then they do not have to depend for their h igh posi­tion upon the rickety scale of Sans­k r i t i za l ion alone, a cr i ter ion that becomes meaningless to the Hrah-inans and Rajputs in precisely the degree to which the castes beneath them acquire more and more Sans-kr i t i za t ion in their own r igh t .

Mirage of Equality

Meanwhile, the low castes expend a major share of their energy on Sanskritrizatlion. In other words, they are salving their wounded collective ego born of past ages of degradation and exploi ta t ion by pursu ing the mirage of equali ty wi th the Brahmans and other high castes. By the time they reach their destination, however, they w i l l discovery that the Brahman has him­self vacated the spot and moved on to the higher h i l l of Westernization where he s t i l l gazes contemptuous­ly down upon them from an elevat­ed porch. In fact, the motive-power for the latter's Inn ing done so wi l l have been suppl ied by the process of Sanskritization itself which, as its very success- caused it to be coveted by and sought by others, caused the high castes to abandon it in favour of new realms of status. No doubt it w i l l be at tins point that the lower castes also commence abandoning their craze for Sanskritization and then the book w i l l have to close on this con­cept, as the resultant new Indian society comes to grips wi th the pro­blem of hirerarehy in radical ly dif­ferent and at this juncture hardly forseeable terms.

It is not intended thai this, analy­sis be const rued as an attempt to provide the explanation of change and mobi l i ty in Indian society to­day. It is not even intended thai this analysis be taken as appl icable in a l l situations where issues of change and mobi l i ty arise. India is too complex a society, and indus­tr ia l izat ion and modernization loo complex processes, for a single general concept to be able to ac­count for a l l facets of the transfor­mation that is being brought about, All that has been attempted here is to show that, there may be an i m -

949

portant dynamic in te rp lay between' the processes of Sanskntizat ion and westernization9 which helps us ac­count for such seeming anachroni­sms as the h igh castes (who obviously have had the highest stake in the old order) revealing stronger urges toward westerniza­t ion and modernization, as symbo­lized by occupational mobi l i ty pat­terns, than the lower castes (who have had the least stake in the o ld o r d e r ) . This is the opposite of what we have been led to expect on the basis of 'classical' accounts of modernization derived f r o m Western data. In short, it is hoped that it w i l l be seen that Srinivas's notion of westernization need not be regarded merely as an ' i r ony ' lu l l as a necessary component of a thorough comprehension of at least one impor tant dimension of the total process of mobi l i ty and change in Indian society.

NOTES 1 By 'earliest' I have in mind the

'scientific past.' which for Anthropo­logy commences little more than a century ago.

2- Hypergamy may be a comparatively late manifestation in India if Srini-vas- (1956) is correct . He says:

Over seventy years ago, the institu­tion of bride-price seems to have provaited among some sections of Mysore Brahmans, But with wes­ternisation, and the demand it created tor educated boys who had iiood jobs, dowry became popular. The better educated a hoy, the larger the dowry ids parents de­manded for him. The ape at which girls married shot up . . . Nowa­days, urban ami middle-class Brah-mans are rarely able to get their girls married before they are eigh­teen , . . ChiId widows are rare., and shaving the heads of widows is practically a thing of the past. (p 490).

Cf, William Crooke (1896) R V Russell (1916) Herbert Risely (1891). E Thurstone (1909)

1 Sherupur is a pseudonym hir a vill­age in District Faizabad of Uttar Pradesh, winch I studied first in 1954-55 under a Fulbright Student Grant and which I further studied from 1959 to 1961 under post-doctoral fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the National Insti­tute of Mental Health respectively. At that, time, a story was common knowledge of how the head man of a neighbouring village, a Rajput, had come to suspect two Koris of committing an act of theft in his house. In traditional high caste fashion, the old Rajput summoned the two koris before him, adminis­tered a beatiAV to them with a luthi (a bamboo stick), and then locked them in an out building and told them he would keep them there un­t i l they 'confessed.' Finally, in order

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

to gain release, the two Korin 'con­fessed.' The old Rajput released them, whereupon the) sped immedia­tely to the local police station and tiled a com plaint against him. At the ensuing trial, the Rajput was found guilty, fined Rs 500, and given three months imprisonment. Since then, there have been no further reports of high castes administering summitry punishment to low caste persons. The Government has seen to it that those days are ended for good. And in this, we see one of the ways in which the previous political power of the upper castes has waned. The leader of the Brahmans in Sheru midable, the Brahmans and Rajputs lost some of their lands to lower castes due to the redistribution which followed dissolution of the Zamindari system of land control. This occurr­ed in 1951 in Uttar Pradesh. The leader of the Brahmans in Shem-pur told me that in the years since Independence, but prior to 1961 when the secret ballot was introduced in the election of village headman, he had come to verbal agreement wiih the perennial Rujput headman llial he won Id not oppose him as long as he did nothing to harm the interests ni die Brahmans in the: community. In the 1961 elections, however, this Brahman decided to oppose the Rajput pradhan because, he claimed, the latter had gone back on his word. However, in this elec­tion, all the high caste candidates were defeated. The son in question is an unusually intelligent young Kori who is now studying for his B A Final. Roth parents of this boy aie also ni ex-tiut.rdiuarily high intelligence (a fact I have determined through the ad­ministration of psychological tests plus direct observation) and ate in innumerable ways distinct trotu their average caste-mates. I am aware that all I have said here depends upon one's assumption that tire notion of Sanskritization is a va­lid one in the hist place. Many social scientists both in bulla and abroad have opposed the concept. So have many who regard themselves- as Classicists or linguists. Without go­ing into the substance of these argu­ments, here, I do nevertheless want to state clearly that I do regard Sanskritization as a useful, meaning­ful, empirically defensible concept oner, it is understood in the sense that Srinivas has used it. In his own words ( 1956 b) :

I have used the word Sanskriti-zation to characterize a particular process. I am not myself sure whether by using it i have succeed­ed in conveying what I want to. 1 should point out here, before anybody else does it, that I my-self do not like that ward. It is extremely awkward. Rut I am not able to find a substitute. The only alternative word that suggests itself to me is Brahmanization, which is not any the less awkward.

This idea of Sanskritization has been found useful by other work­ers in the Indian h e l d . . . By die term Sanskritization, I mean the

process by which a low caste gives up its own rites, customs, and be­liefs, and takes tip, instead, the customs, rites, and beliefs of a higher caste. It is a much wider term, than, and somewhat different from, the term Brahmanization . . .

One of the funny things about Sanskriti/ation is that, not infre­quently, the agents of Sanskriti/a­tion are not Bruhmaus. In fact, they ate occasionally anti-Brah-manical. They have Sanskritized their way of life, and they spread Sanskritization in the society as a whole, and this goes with an anta­gonism to the caste, whose ways they have taken over, (pp 90-91)

In fact, it is possible to say that a condition of Sanskriti/ation may be the

feeling of antagonism to 'the caste whose ways' have been taken over! If the issue were seen in this manner, the bulk oi the objections to Sanskritization as a concept should fade away. One cannot help suspecting that some of the objections arc trivialities and deliberate misreadings which are motivated not so much by the desire to clarify and am­plify as by the desire to make rather vain displays of "erudition."

BIBLIOGRAPHY Crooke , William

1896"The Tribes and Castes of the North nest Provinces and Oudh," Cal­cutta: Superintendent of Documents. 1 vols.

Eames, Edwin 1951 "Some Aspects ill Urban Mig-

lalion from a Village in North Central India. Faster n Anthroptdofiist. Vol III. No I Could, Harold

1950 "The Implications of Technolo­gical Change for Folk and Scientihc

Medicine,'' Ameritan Anthropologist, vol 59,' No 3.

1958 "The Hindu Jajmani .System: A Case of Economic Particularism," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol 14, No 4.

1959 "The Peasant Village : Centrifu­gal or Centripetal. '' Eastern Anthropo-logist. Vol XI II No 4. Hutton, J II

1946 "Caste in India/ ' Bombay : Ox­ford Press.

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