Sanskritization: The career of an anthropological theory

Abstract

The paper sketches the origins and development of one of the most widely influential of anthropological contributions to thinking about Indian society, 'Sanskritization', tracing its sources and its evolution in the thought of M.N. Srinivas, its author. As a process, he identified it first in his work as a student of G.S. Ghurye on 1930's rural Mysore. The roots and the form of this identification are examined. The theory was named and proclaimed in his classic Religion and society among the Coorgs, based on his Ph.D. work for Ghurye which he had reworked under the influence of Radcliffe-Brown's structural functionalism. Appearing thus, its original limited base was hidden: it was no longer a theory about Mysore society but about India in general, and indeed India resurgent in the era of Independence. Two diverging theses developed, linked by the centrality of the Brahman. One, seminal for future theoretical development, introduced social mobility into caste analysis; the other, more politically significant, was on the integration of Indian society. The paper discusses the subsequent development of the theory and, in a postscript, the way in which it reappears at the centre of current ideological oppositions.