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In this essay you will learn about Sanskritization.
“Sanskritization is the process by which a ‘low’ Hindu caste, or tribal or other group, changes its customs, ritual, and way of life in the direction of a high, and frequently twice-born, caste. Generally such changes are followed by a claim to a higher position in the caste hierarchy than that traditionally conceded to a claimant caste by the local community. The claim is usually made over a period of time, in fact, a generation or two, before the ‘arrival’ is conceded”.
Srinivas, however, points out that “there has been not one model of sanskritization but three or four and during the early period of Indian history there was some rivalry between the different models”. That is, apart from Brahminical model there were other models, such as, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra.
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Srinivas also points out the role of the dominant castes in setting the model for the majority of people living in rural areas including, occasionally, Brahmins.
“The mediation of the various models of sanskritization through the locally dominant caste stresses the importance of the latter in the process of cultural transmission. Thus if the locally dominant caste is Brahmin or Lingayat, it will tend to transmit a Brahminical model of sanskritization, whereas if it is Rajput or Bania, it will transmit Kshatriya or vaishya models. Of course, each locally dominant caste has its own conception of Brahmin, Kashtriya or Vaishya models”.
If the locally dominant caste belongs to the lower stratum of caste hierarchy, the upper caste, people may try to conform to or abide by the ways of living of the former.
While referring to this aspect, Srinivas observes as follows:
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“The representatives of the Great Tradition may succumb to the Little Traditions, and this seems to have happened occasionally”.
(A note on Great Tradition and Little Tradition: In his book Peasant Society and Culture, Redfield postulates that civilizations, as distinguished from primitive societies and cultures, are made up of distinct but inter-related parts or levels that have special contents and styles associated with them.
In its simplest form, Redfield identifies a great tradition, embodying the thought, values, customs and world-view of the reflective few in society. The great tradition is associated with specialists in the maintenance and development of the tradition, the literati, the priests and ritual specialists, the cultural consumers of the cities, the royal courts, and the ritual centres. The little traditions are found among the unreflective masses, the illiterate, the uneducated, the unreflective).
While emphasizing the role of centres of pilgrimage and monasteries as sources of sanskritization, Srinivas observes as follows:
“Each pilgrimage centre had its own hinterland……… a pilgrim centre as well as a monastery managed to influence the way of life of everyone in its hinterland. When section of a dominant caste came under the influence of a centre or monastery, Sanskritization spread vertically to non-dominant castes in the area and horizontally to members living elsewhere. Such spreading has been greatly facilitated in recent years by a variety of forces, technological, institutional and ideological”.
While referring to the possibility of upper class people conforming to the ways of living of tribals, Srinivas observes as follows:
“S.L. Kalia has described the process of ‘tribalization’ occurring in Janusar-Bawar in U.P. and in the Bastar region of M.P., according to which high-caste Hindus temporarily resident among tribal people take over the latter’s mores, ritual and beliefs which are in many respects antithetical to their own”.
Srinivas also characterizes conformity to Western ways of living as sanskritization. Thus, he observes:
“Westernization, like sanskritization, is a blanket term: it includes Western education as well as the adoption of Western ways of life and outlook…. westernization helps to spread Sanskritization through the products of its technology— newspapers, radio and films”.
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In order to bring out the implications of sanskritization vis-a-vis the social structure, he observes as follows:
“Mobility associated with sanskritization results only in positional changes in the system and does not lead to any structural change”.
Some observations on the concept of sanskritization, as developed by Srinivas, will be in order. In the first place, the term ‘sanskritization’ is likely to convey a wrong impression inasmuch as there are no Sanskritic rituals. Sanskrit is simply a language and does not imply a way of life or a set of rituals. There are rituals associated with Brahmins, Kshatriyas or Vaishyas.
When upper caste people conform to or accept the ways of living of comparatively low caste people, the process is also characterised as ‘sanskritization’.
Srinivas himself says:
“The agents of socialization were (and are) not always Brahmins”. In this context the use of the term ‘sanskritization’ is misleading.
Secondly, the process of change, which Srinivas sought to explain in terms of ‘sanskritization’, can be adequately explained in terms of ‘reference group’ concept, without the complexities created by the use of the term ‘sanskritization’.
Srinivas himself is conscious of this when he observes:
“The usefulness of sanskritization as a tool in the analysis of Indian society is greatly limited by the complexity of the concept as well as its looseness”.
Thirdly, the complexity of the concept becomes apparent when his concept of sanskritization also subsumes what he characterizes as ‘westernization’. The close association of Indians with the British for over a century and a half created in the former “certain value preferences” for “western technology, institutions, ideology and values”.
“Thus, the process termed as westernization is not very different from that termed as sanskritisation.
He attempts to draw a line of separation between the two concepts thus:
“sanskritization occurs generally as part of the process of the upward movement of castes while Westernization has no such association”.
But when westernization is looked upon by the people as a symbol of a higher social status, some people would naturally take to western ways of life as part of the process of moving up in the social hierarchy.
This process may also be characterised as sanskritization when he says:
“This adoption of the symbols of higher status has been called Sanskritization”.