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Sociology of Change and Development
Notes (1) The concept of sanskritisation analyses the social and cultural mobility.
(2) This change occurs due to the internal sources. Caste is a system; it is cascaded. In this when any
caste standing at the footrest tries to upgrade itself, the reason for this change is present only inside
the caste system. The inferior castes do not want to improve their status outside the caste system.
Because of this we understand the source of cultural change to be endogenous.
(3) Sanskritisation is vertical.
(4) The center of the concept of sanskritisation is tradition and every caste has a historical tradition.
According to this tradition, the cascaded system of the caste, some castes are at the top, some in
middle and some at the bottom level. This levelled tradition is permissible.
The history of sanskritisation is vast. Its beginning is with Brahamanisation and then the imitation of
superior castes used to be called sanskritisation. Today, in our country, when tribal people, Muslims
or other non-Hindu castes adopt the values of superior castes, then that is called sanskritisation. After
observing this direction of change, for the latest definition of sanskritisation, Srinivas says that it is
that process due to which the inferior Hindu castes or sub-castes or other groups brings social and
cultural changes in their customs, religious processes, thought process, life-style etc to attain the
status of superior castes.
3.6 Little and Great Traditions
The concept of little and great traditions was first of all implemented by Robert Redfi eld during his
study on the villages of Mexico. By this experimentation, Milton Singer and McKim Marriott were
impressed. Both these humanists applied the concept of Redfi eld on Indian villages. When Singer and
Marriott studied Indian villages, they gave importance to two elements. The first element is Indian
civilisation and the second element is tradition. They say that evolution takes place both for civilisation
and tradition. The first evolution is due to endogenous sources and the second evolution is due to the
exogenous or heterogeneous processes. On both the Indian civilisation and tradition, there has been an
influence of external cultures or civilisations.
Traditions and civilisation keeps on changing continuously. In the first stage, our civilisation or tradition
has been folk dominated. This folk civilisation becomes great tradition. In this great tradition, there
is a predominance of Sanskrit writings, Vedas, Puranas, Upnishads and other writings. In this great
tradition, the role of Brahmans is infl uential. In this way, great tradition is that in which civilisation
and traditions are historical, which has classical writings and in which there is a predominance of
superior castes.
McKim Marriott has studied little and great tradition in Kishangarhi village of Aligarh district. Here,
two more concepts given by McKim Marriott are presented:
(1) Universalisation
(2) Parochialisation
Universalisation is that which is accredited by the entire Hindu castes. It is based on holy notion. The
religious processes that have been explained in the epics and Sanskrit writings are holy processes. In
various areas of the country, no one sees the great tradition with suspicion. This tradition is exemplary
for all the castes.
When great tradition comes at the local level, there is a difference in its adaptation. The river of a
village or a channel flowing nearby is believed to be River Ganges. The Ganges, Yamuna, Saraswati
of the great tradition cannot come in the village and because of this any river of the village is referred
to as Ganges. This is Parochialisation of the great tradition. Universalisation and Parochialisation
are the two processes, which establish the interworking between the great tradition and the little
tradition. Here it should be said argumentatively that the process of interworking in the great and
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