[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985) › c19.s13 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s13: Chapter Twelve The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c19.s13 - **Language:** English ### Chapter Twelve ### [c19.s13.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.1) 1. See, for instance, H. Yule and A. C. Burnell, \*Hobson Jobson: A Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and Phrases\*, 2d ed. (London 1903), s.v. “caste.” ### [c19.s13.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.2) 2. Ibid. But note the early orientalist H. T. Colebrooke’s casual idea of caste: “In practice, little attention is paid to the limitations to which we have alluded” (\*Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal\*, \[London, 1806\]), 31. ### [c19.s13.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.3) 3. See A. C. Mayer, \*Caste and Kinship in Central India\* (Berkeley 1960), 30–47; also chapter 1, section 2. ### [c19.s13.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.4) 4. Best known is Charles Metcalf’s minute in \*Report from the Select Committee in the House of Commons 3\* (1830), appendix 84. Cf. Louis Dumont, “The ‘Village Community’ from Munro to Maine,” \*Contributions to Indian Sociology\* 9 (1966): 67–89. ### [c19.s13.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.5) 5. See chapter 11, section 7; also J. C. Heesterman, “Political Modernization in India,” in \*Traditional Attitudes and Modern Styles in Political Leadership\*, ed. J. D. Legge (Sidney, 1973), 29–56, esp. 35–37, 46–48. ### [c19.s13.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.6) 6. For this section I am greatly indebted to discussions with Frank Perlin and to his work on and expert knowledge of the rich Marāṭhī material on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Western India. This does not necessarily mean that he concurs with my views. Cf. his “Of White Whale and Countrymen in the eighteenth-century Maratha Deccan,” \*Journal of Peasant Studies\* 5, no. 2 (1978): 172–237; and “To Identify Change in an Old Regime Polity,” in \*Asie du Sud: Traditions et Changements\*, ed. M. Gaborieau and A. Thorner (Sixth European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Paris, July 1978). ### [c19.s13.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.7) 7. H. D. Robertson, in \*Selections of Papers from the Records of the East India House\* (London 1826), 6: 416, quoted in V. T. Gune, \*The Judicial System of the Marathas\* (Poona 1953), 4. ### [c19.s13.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.8) 8. Conquest does not normally change the existing order of rights and holdings. Against this background M. Athar Ali’s statement that “Aurangzeb’s annexations in the Deccan were not the work of a military steam-roller, but of a slow and cumbrous machine, which sought energy and strength by recruiting deserters bribed to come over from the enemy” gains in depth (\*The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb\* \[London, 1966\], 173). The “deserters” were clearly important figures in the intricate web of rights and holdings, in which the conquering power had to gain a foothold. ### [c19.s13.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.9) 9. Perlin, “Of White Whale,” 177. ### [c19.s13.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.10) 10. Ibid., 183. ### [c19.s13.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.11) 11. A particularly illustrative specimen is contained in W. H. Sykes, “Land Tenures of the Deccan,” in \*Parliamentary Papers\* (London, 1866), vol. 3, no. 22b, 17–32. The document quoted by Sykes gives a detailed account of a long, drawn-out conflict over a village headmandship. ### [c19.s13.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.12) 12. Perlin, “To identify Change,” 8, 12. ### [c19.s13.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.13) 13. Ibid., 7ff. ### [c19.s13.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.14) 14. See W. Rau, \*Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien\* (Wiesbaden 1957), 34f. ### [c19.s13.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.15) 15. Perlin, “To identify Change,” 10. Perhaps the “eating” metaphor has an added dimension, namely, that the “food” miraculously does not diminish when wisely “eaten,” even when the eating has continued for generations. ### [c19.s13.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.16) 16. See G. R. B. Inden and R. W. Nicholas, \*Kinship in Bengali Culture\* (Chicago, 1977), 17–19, 29–31, 80–81. ### [c19.s13.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.17) 17. It may be noted that here the criterion for status is not "purity" (as in Dumont's treatment of caste), but "honor." ### [c19.s13.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.18) 18. Sykes, "Land Tenures," 30. ### [c19.s13.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.19) 19. Perlin, "To Identify Change," 7. ### [c19.s13.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.20) 20. Incidentally, this also means that caste is not naturally bound up with peasant life. We therefore need not be surprised to find it again in modern city life in new and possibly even sharper forms in some respects. ### [c19.s13.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.21) 21. Louis Dumont, \*Homo Hierarchicus\*, trans. M. Sainsbury (London, 1972). ### [c19.s13.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.22) 22. See ibid., 93ff. (para. 32), for Dumont's view of the way the theoretical scheme of the four varṇas accounts for power and allows the hierarchy of purity, headed by the brahmins, to be conjugated with power represented by the second, kṣatriya, varṇa. Dumont recognizes that the varṇa scheme is not based on purity. But, although it gives a place to the kṣatriya, it cannot establish a valid relationship between the kṣatriya and the brahmin. The principle of the varṇa scheme is strict separation. On the problematic relationship, or rather the chasm, between king and brahmin, see chapter 10, esp. sections 1, 7–10. ### [c19.s13.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.23) 23. Dumont, \*Homo Hierarchicus\*, 107 (para. 24). ### [c19.s13.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.24) 24. Ibid., 268 (para. 106). ### [c19.s13.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.25) 25. Ibid., 107 (para. 24). ### [c19.s13.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.26) 26. R. B. Inden, \*Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture\* (Berkeley, 1976); Veena Das, \*Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste and Ritual\* (Delhi, 1977). ### [c19.s13.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.27) 27. Inden, \*Marriage and Rank\*, 102. ### [c19.s13.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.28) 28. Ibid., 47, 106. ### [c19.s13.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.29) 29. This is argued by Madeline Biardeau and Charles Malamoud, \*Le Sacrifice dans l'Inde ancienne\* (Paris, 1976), esp. 13, 153, 197. But cf. chapter 6. ### [c19.s13.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.30) 30. Inden, \*Marriage and Rank\*, 91. ### [c19.s13.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.31) 31. See J. C. Heesterman, "Veda and Dharma," in \*The Concept of Duty in South Asia\*, ed. W. D. O'Flaherty and J. D. Derrett (Delhi and London, 1978), 80–95; also above, chapter 6. ### [c19.s13.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.32) 32. Das, \*Structure and Cognition\*, 22–26. It is interesting that later on the Caturvedis lose their status and resort to a śūdra life, apparently through lack of faith in their divine calling, when their relationship with a heterodox king forces them to an ordeal (ibid., 26–31). The Trivedi brahmins—that is, those who are less perfectly in possession of the Vedas, having only three out of the total four—go through with the ordeal and win. Though the text does not connect the two episodes, the lesson seems to be that this world does not tolerate perfection. The less perfect Trivedis, closing their eyes to the incompatibility of power and purity, accept King Rāma's largesse and manage to come through, while the perfect Caturvedis try the humanly impossible and fail. ### [c19.s13.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.33) 33. See above chapter 10, section 8. ### [c19.s13.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.34) 34. Marcel Mauss, "Essai sur le don," in \*Sociologie et Anthropologie\* (Paris, 1950), 243, no. 3. See above, chapter 2, section 9. ### [c19.s13.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.35) 35. On the division of the "grain heap," see W. C. Neale, "Reciprocity and Redistribution," in \*Trade and Markets in Early Empires\*, ed. K. Polanyi et al. (Glencoe, 1957), and Louis Dumont, \*La Civilisation indienne et nous\* (Paris, 1964), 19. For a contemporaneous description of the procedure, see M.-L. Reiniche, "La Notion de Jajmāni," \*Puruṣārtha\* 3 (1977): 71–107. ### [c19.s13.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.36) 36. In her analysis of the division procedure, Miss Reiniche wants to stress the symbolical aspects of the distribution as a sacrificial act tying the participants together in hierarchical exchange and interdependence ("l'ensemble sacrifice-sacrifiant-spécialistes" forming "un modèle pour l'activité de la société et sa reproduction"). Her analysis, which also brings in the ritual gift (\*dakṣiṇā\*) is certainly interesting. It is also interesting that she has recourse to the idiom of differential or shared rights—as apparently do her informants, who seem less interested in the sacrificial model but prefer to explain the procedures in terms of \*kāṇiyāṭci\*, holding of a right or share (ibid., 73 and passim). ### [c19.s13.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.37) 37. This may explain the otherwise strange fact that although the texts seem to suggest that the king's part of the harvest is related to his protection of the people, his right to part of the produce is not dependent on the performance of this duty (see Robert Lingat, \*Les Sources du droit traditionel de l'Inde\* \[Paris, 1967\], 237; U. N. Ghoshal, \*A History of Indian Political Ideas\* \[Oxford, 1966\], 536f). ### [c19.s13.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.38) 38. At first sight, this would seem to come down to the integral unity of the village. However, the important feature is the dispersion and interspersion of rights, irrespective of boundaries, bringing about a complex integration. The counterpart of this integration—bringing together many varied, often rivalling, holders of rights in the same good—is conflict, which all the time threatens the comprehensive order of rights. ### [c19.s13.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13.39) 39. This concept of property was introduced through Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement (1795). Whether the owner was to be the \*zamīndār\* ("landholder"), the \*ryot\* ("peasant"), or even the village community made corporate is, of course, a pragmatical question. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c19.s13) · Pramāṇa