Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications.

TLDR

Louis Dumont’s revised edition offers a cogent statement on the Indian caste system, linking ethnographic data to hierarchical ideology embedded in ancient religious texts and contrasting it with the Western concept of homo aequalis. The edition expands with a new Preface reviewing academic debate, a Postface outlining theoretical and comparative hierarchy aspects, and three appendices previously omitted from the English translation.

Abstract

Louis Dumont's modern classic, here presented in an enlarged, revised, and corrected second edition, simultaneously supplies that reader with the most cogent statement on the Indian caste system and its organizing principles and a provocative advance in the comparison of societies on the basis of their underlying ideologies. Dumont moves gracefully from the ethnographic data to the level of the hierarchical ideology encrusted in ancient religious texts which are revealed as the governing conception of the contemporary caste structure. On yet another plane of analysis, homo hierarchicus is contrasted with his modern Western antithesis, homo aequalis. This edition includes a lengthy new Preface in which Dumont reviews the academic discussion inspired by Homo Hierarchicus and answers his critics. A new Postface, which sketches the theoretical and comparative aspects of the concept of hierarchy, and three significant Appendixes previously omitted from the English translation complete this innovative and influential work.