The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c16.22

c16.22

So far, and somewhat surprisingly, caste seems to be little in evidence. However, this is what we should have expected. As already noted, the facts of peasant society and those of caste belong to two different orders, each with its own orientation.²⁰ This insight we owe to the work of Louis Dumont, who has clarified the sharp ideological separation of power relations on the one hand and authority based on purity on the other.²¹ Now the features of peasant society we have so far dealt with clearly belong to the realm of power and dominance, or, in classical terms, of the king. Caste, by contrast, exclusively refers to the value of purity. As a matter of principle, it lacks common ground with the world of power relations.²² It therefore stands to reason that caste receives little attention in the context of power relations. But by the same token, we touch here on a sensitive and indeed pivotal problem—a problem not only for the observer but for the participants. How should the two orders—the royal order of power relations that pervades society and the equally pervasive caste order based on purity—which regulate the lives of the same people, be related to each other? Dumont’s answer is “encompassment.” The ultimate value of purity encompasses its opposite, the world of power “as the mantle of Our Lady of Mercy shelters sinners of every kind in its voluminous folds”.²³ The encompassment is achieved through the hierarchy of purity which assigns to each part its place with reference to the whole and integrates them in a system of hierarchical interdependence. Power, then, is subordinated to the hierarchy of purity, as the king is hierarchically inferior to the brahmin.