Page 136 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Satyabrata Kar, Lovely Professional University
Ripudaman Singh, Lovely Professional University
Unit 6: Caste System in India

Unit 6: Caste System in India Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
6.1 What is the Caste System
6.2 Caste in Modern India
6.3 Structural and Cultural Concepts of Caste
6.4 Characteristics of Caste
6.5 Dominant Caste
6.6 Inter-Caste and Intra-Caste Relations
6.7 Summary
6.8 Key-Words
6.9 Review Questions
6.10 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit students will be able to:
• Know what is caste system.
• Discuss structural and cultural concept of caste.
• Understand the characteristics of caste.
• Assess dominant caste.
Introduction

The caste system in India has been studied with three perspectives: Indological, socio-anthropological
and sociological. The Indologists have viewed caste from the scriptural point of view, social
anthropologists from the cultural point of view, and sociologists from the stratificational point of view.
In the Indo-religious perspective, the Indologists take their cue from the scriptures about the origin,
purpose and future of the caste system They maintain that varnas have originated from Brahma—the
virat purusa—and castes are the fissioned units within the varna system developed as the result of
hypergamy and hypogamy practices. These units, or jatis, received their ranks relative to one another
in the varna order. The rituals to be performed by the four varnas are status-bound and prescribed in
the Brahmanas (written in about 800 B.C.), while the customs and the laws to be followed by each
caste are prescribed in the Smritis (written in about 200-100 B.C.). The regional, linguistic, ethnic and
sectarian variations have gradually come to affect the ordering of jati relationships. The object of the
origin of castes, according to them (Indologists), was the division of labour. As people came to accept
the general ideology of the division of society into four groups (or say, classes or orders), they became
more and more rigid, and membership, occupation, etc., became hereditary. The Brahmins were
given the superior position in the social system because of the belief in the divine right of Brahmins
to interprete and administer the laws. The rigidity in the caste system is, thus, the result of beliefs in
karma (deeds) and dharma (duties and obligations), which means that the motive force for the caste
dogmas was definitely religious. Referring to the future of castes, the Indologists maintain that since
they are divine, they will continue to exist.
The cultural perspective of the social anthropologists like Hutton, Risley, Hoebel, Kroeber, etc. ramifies
itself in four directions: organizational, structural, institutional, and relational (Verma, 1972). The

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