[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) › c5.10 # The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.10 The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c5.10 - **Language:** English ### [c5.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.10) Yet the typically brahminized khatis and other castes following the same pattern are placed by the consensus of Mayer's informants fairly low on the ranking scale, below the rajputs and their allies. From the point of view of brahminic values as the touchstone of hierarchy, the fact that the meat-eating and generally unbrahminic rajputs and their “allied” servants are credited with a higher rank is distinctly embarrassing. Professor Dumont observes that “here to all appearances the principle of the pure and the impure is in abeyance,” a circumstance which he feels to be fairly unique. He then argues that “this is the point at which . . . power participates in purity, although the latter negates it in theory; or in other words, this is the point at which the solidarity between the first two varnas (of brahmins and kṣatriyas) reveals itself.” The solution, however, does not seem to require this somewhat awkward explanation. The trouble is not so much with the reported facts as with the theory of an all-encompassing ideology of hierarchy, which forces us to underplay the real contradictions. Since Professor Dumont recognizes these contradictions which he analyzes so clearly, one wonders why he did not exploit them for his theoretical work instead of relegating them to a secondary level. For if we start by taking them seriously, it becomes at once apparent that we are confronted—as the villager is—with two opposite and irreconcilable principles of organization, the one stressing interdependence, and the other independence. The relevant point is, then, not the unexplained low rank of the brahminizing caste, but rather that this ranking in fact runs aground on their brahminical separateness and independence, which are reflected in their opting out of the regular system of food and drink exhanges. Professor Mayer, therefore, has to put them in his table of castes in a separate block, not under but next to the rajputs and their allies, while the other castes follow under the rajputs. - [Previous: c5.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.9) - [Next: c5.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.11) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5) ## Linked texts (1) - [Brāhmaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.veda.brahmana) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.heesterman-1985.c5.10) · Pramāṇa