Approaches to the study of Indian Society

INDOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Indology: Meaning and Definition

Indology is known as the science of Indian Society. The Indological perspective
claims to understand Indian Society through the concepts, theories and frameworks
that are closely associated with Indian Civilization. It made a claim that Indian
Society is unique in structure, function and dynamics and cannot be associated with
the European Society. Indology relies on book view and denounces rigorous
empirical investigation. Indology consists of studying language, beliefs, ideas,
customs, taboos, codes, institutions, rituals, ceremonies and other related
components of culture. Indology demands inter-disciplinary, multi- disciplinary and
cross disciplinary approach.

Scholars of Indology
Indology is more a textual study, so a lot of scholars have conducted their studies
depending on text. The studies conducted during this period covers a wide range of
subjects such as social structure and relationships, cultural values, kinship, ideology,
cultural transactions and symbolism of life and the world etc. the studies based on
text have been conducted by many scholars, such as Bernett, David, Fruzzetti and
Oslor, Inden and Nicholas, Khare, Murray, Marriott, Pocock etc.

Indological Perspective owes its origin to the contribution of the Orientalists like
William Jones, Henry Maine, Max Muller etc. All of them have based their studies on
rich cultural tradition of India and the principle that govern India and out laws of
Hindu.

Many founding fathers of Indian Sociology are also influenced by Indology. The
various scholars are like B.K. Sarkar, G.S. Ghurye, R.K. Mukherjee, K.M. Kapadia,
Irawati Karve, P.H. Prabhu, Louis Dumont.

Indology and Orientalism

Within Indology there is the bifurcation of two studies. That is Indology or Indic
studies and Oriental studies. Both of them have some commonalities and
differences. Indology is said to be the westerner’s labour of love for the Indian
wisdom. And Orientalism emerged as the ideological need of the British Empire.
Indologist like Jones, Louis Renou and Bougle in France and Wilson in British India
are the reputed figure and the Orientalist include Muller, William Archard, Max
Weber, Karl Marx. There is a general tendency among the Indologist either to
exaggerate the virtue of Indian culture, Orientalist were trying to see negative aspect
of Indian tradition and rationalize missionary activities and colonial legacy.
Indologist over emphasized Indian spiritualist and under emphasized the
materialistic culture but the Orientalist did the reverse as they undermined
spirituality and over emphasized on materialistic culture.

G. S. Ghurye

Life Sketch of G. S. Ghurye:

Ghurye often been acclaimed as the ‘father of Indian Sociology’. Ghurye was the
first scholar, who had built up the entire first generation of Indian Sociologists in
Post- independence period, almost single-handedly. He is the founder of Indian
Sociological Society and the Sociological Bulletin. Ghurye is often accredited as
“Theoretical Pluralist” because he tried to study Indian Society and culture through
multiple methods. He relied on both the empirical and textual methods for studying
Indian Society. Ghurye was initially influenced by the diffusionist approach of
Anthropology and later on he switched to the study of Indian Social reality from
Ontological and Anthropological perspective. Ghurye’s Indological Approach draws
its sustenance from Sanskritic literature base. Ghurye tried to make a judicious
blending between the Indological and Sociological discipline.

Ghurye’s “Caste and Race in India” tried to make a reconstruction of a very

orthodox traditional and age-old social institution of India i.e. Caste. According to
Ghurye Sociology of India is not static, it emanates from the ancient India, travels
through medieval India and reaches Modern India. Ghurye viewed that an
institution should be studied on the basis of three things that are transition,
transplantation and transformation.

Works & Writings:

The few broad areas that have been identified in Ghurye’s writings are;
1. Caste.
2. Tribe.
3. Kinship.
4. Culture and Civilisation.
5. Religion.
6. Sociology of Conflict and Integration.
7. Family and Marriage.

The various writings of Ghurye include:

 Caste and Race in India (1932)

 Indian Sadhus (1953)
 Bharatnatyam and its costume (1958)
 Family and Kinship in Indo-European culture (1955)
 Social tensions in India (1968)
 Caste in India

Ghurye’s understanding of caste is comparative, historical and Indological as well.

Unlike his contemporaries he doesn't glorify or condemn caste, rather he considers
caste as a product of Indian culture, changing with the passage of time. Ghurye
studies caste mostly as a diffusionist and a historian than as an Indologist. In his
book "Caste and Race in India", he agrees with Sir Herbert Risley that caste is a
product of race that comes to India along with Aryans.

Ghurye considers it as unfortunate that caste system is mostly understood in terms

of Brahminic domination. Caste has gone through the process of fusion and fission
in different ways in Indian history. During Vedic period caste was a product of race.
Aryans distinguished themselves from non-Aryans just in terms of colour but
subsequently different ethnic groups developed alliance/relationship with each other
and Hindu culture and values moved from Aryan community to non-Aryan
communities. On the basis of their occupation caste names were allocated to
different groups. Ghurye tells that it may be a matter of fact that caste evolved in
India with the advent of Aryans, but at the same time there were different racial
categories present in India prior to coming of the Aryans. Aryans advent added one
more race to the already existing ones. Caste was not a hierarchical exploitative
system. No caste was superior or inferior. Occupation change was possible.

Ghurye points out that caste was considered as central to organized form of division
of labour in Aryan society. When Aryans and indigenous communities developed
interpersonal relationship through communication and warfare, the disciplined
nature of Aryan society was appreciated by indigenous rulers who injected the
elements of caste into their social life. In addition to that, priests, monasteries and
travellers glorified the virtues of Aryan caste system. Hence the element of caste
radiated from northern India to other parts of the country.

Features of Caste:

Ghurye explains caste in India on the basis of six distinctive characteristics:

 Segmental division of society

 Hierarchy
 Civil and religious disabilities and privileges
 Lack of unrestricted choice of occupation
 Restriction on food, drinks and social intercourse
 Endogamy

 Segmental division of the society:

 Segment is the compartmentalization of the population into groups. It is basically
horizontal in character. The membership is ascribed in character.

 Hierarchy:
After the segmental divisions of the society, they are put in a pyramidical structure
then it is called as hierarchy. The layering of the segments is basically vertical in
nature. According to Ghurye, hierarchy basically implies the Division of Labour. The
entire gamut of activities in the society is divided into four types like religious,
governance, maintenance and menial, i.e. into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and
Shudras respectively. The higher the position in the hierarchy the greater is the role
and higher is the responsibility. Hierarchy also determines the individual’s access to
life chances (education, health, nutrition) and life resources (wealth, power,
property).

 Civil and religious disabilities:

Civil and religious disabilities expressed the rigidity of the caste system. Civil and
religious disabilities basically came from the concept of purity and pollution.
Disabilities were for impure and polluted caste and privileges were for is for
pure/higher castes.

 Lack of choice of occupation:

The occupations have been fixed by heredity. Members of a caste maintain their
supremacy and secrecy in their jobs and do not allow the other caste group to join in.

 Restriction on food, drinks (commensality) and social intercourse:

Some rules have been imposed upon all caste people. Restriction on feeding and
social intercourse are still prevalent in Indian society.

 Endogamy:
Indian caste system is also polarized due to endogamy being determined primarily
by Caste. People can marry within caste only.

Tribes in India
Ghurye considers that multiple ethnic groups were present in India prior to the
entry of Aryans. Hindu culture was not imposed on tribal communities; rather an
interaction Aryan culture that was mystical, magical and spiritual got entangled with
Tantric culture, magical culture and materialistic culture of different ethnic groups
gave way to evolution of Hinduism. Therefore, considering Hindu culture as Aryan
culture is nonsensical. The tribal deities like Ganesh, Kali, and Shiva were getting
equal space in Hinduism with Aryan deities like Indira, Vishnu, Brahma. Animism,
totemism, naturalism for establishing synthesis between multiple culture present in
Indian society. As a result, the tribes of India consider the Hindu society and its
cultural tradition a new home for them. Therefore, voluntarily they assimilate
themselves within the folds of Hindu
 society. Ghurye writes "Tribalism always contribute towards the construction of
Hindu temple that is yet to be completed", meaning Hindu culture is evolving
through a series of dialectics addressing to the demand of people in time and space.
He considers that Hindu cultural values were shared by tribal communities in
mitigating the tribe – caste differences. Therefore, tribes of India are backward
Hindus. Backward’ because of epistemology of Hinduism like Sanskar, distinction
between Buddhi, Mana, Ahankar are yet to reach them even though they have
already gone for Hindu life, ritual and way of life. Ghurye was critical to Elvin's
approach of ‘isolationism’, indicating that forced isolation of the tribes from the
larger society will accelerate suspicion leading to secessionist movement. He further
indicated that separatist movement in North East India is a product of the cultural
distinction between tribes located there and the larger Hindu society. In conclusion
one can advocate that Ghurye understands of tribes and their problems largely
manifest his nationalist appeal as he considers cultural unity between tribes and
caste can only promote integration in Indian society.

Critical Appraisal
He fails to recognize the rise of modern India and the contribution of Islamic and
British rulers. In Ghurye’s sociology ideology predominates over the fact; and that is
a tragedy for Indian sociology. A.R. Desai writes that, studying India from the lens of
culture provides us no space to understand the real India that lives within inequality,
diversity, dialectic and exploitation. Therefore, one has to come out of the bondage
of Ghurye’s sociology to understand real India and the challenges and problems
associated.
In a nutshell, one can advocate that Ghurye’s sociology is romanticizing India what
it is not.

Louis Dumont

Life sketch
Louis Dumont, the French sociologist, is regarded as an Indologist. Dumont used
ethnographic detail in this study and applied holistic approach. He also learnt
Sanskrit. The fruit of this research endeavour was his magnum opus, Homo
Hierarchies. Dumont said that the sociology of India must lie at the ‘confluence of
sociology and Indology’.
Methodology
As a study of the caste system in India, Dumont’s Homo Hierarchcius offers several
new perspectives of social structure. The notion of ideology and traditions are
intrinsic parts of his paradigm. He has brought the method of structuralism to bear
upon his study of the caste system. The chief elements of his methodology are:
1. Ideology and structure
2. Dialectic transformational relationship and comparison
3. Indological and structuralist approach
4. Cognitive historical approach
 Dumont seeks the ideology of castes in Indology, and in the assumption of the unity
of Indian civilization. Indian civilization, to him, is a specific ideology whose
component is in a binary opposition to that of the West: modern against equality,
purity against pollution, status against power etc. Apart from ideology and structure,
the notion of hierarchy has a pivotal place in Dumont’s study of caste system.

Writings of Dumont
Dumont has written on wide range of subjects such as Hinduism, caste, kinship,
and social and political movements in India. His major works are as follows:
1- La Tarasque(1951)
2- One sous-caste de Inde du sud: Organization sociale et religion des pramalai
kallar(1957)
4- Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications (1966, 1970)
5- Religion, Politics and History in India: Collected Papers in Indian Sociology
(1970)
6- Homo Aequalis (1977)

Homo Hierarchicus
Hierarchy is said to distinguish Indian society from ‘modern’ societies whose
fundamental social principle is equality. The major theme of this review can be
anticipated thus: any hierarchy, like any equalitrian system, is opposed by those who
see its effect upon themselves as disadvantageous, no matter how loudly or piously it
is advocated by those who benefit from it. Those low in a hierarchical system
universally see it as disadvantageous to them and object to the system or to the
manner in which it is applied to themselves.

Dumont's perspective on caste system

Dumont's perspective on caste system was primarily concerned with the ideology of
the caste system. His understanding of caste lays emphasis on attributes of caste that
is why his approach is called attributional approach to the caste system. For him
caste is set of relationships of economic, political and kinship systems, sustained by
certain values which are mostly religious in nature. Dumont says that caste is not a
form of stratification but a special form of inequality. His analysis of caste system is
based on a single principle-the opposition of pure and impure. This opposition
underlies hierarchy which means superiority of the pure and inferiority of impure.

Concept of pure and impure

According to Dumont the opposition of purity and pollution is always between the
two extreme categories. The Brahmins being the higher caste and having priestly job
are considered to be pure. The untouchables being at the lower rank and doing the
menial jobs are considered to be the impure. These untouchables are always left at a
segregated place from villages along with various kinds of impositions on them. They
are being restricted from the access of the common places like temple, well etc.

Theory of Varnas
Dumont has viewed that India has the traditional hierarchy of Varnas. Through this
there is the fourfold division of the society, such as Brahmins or priest, Kshatriyas or
warriors, Vaishyas or the traders/ merchants and the Shudras or the servants. He
found that there were no categories below this called to be the untouchables. Caste
and varnas are to be understood with relationship of hierarchy and power.

Critical Appraisal
Dumont’s work is based on traditional Indian Texts. Consequently, the features of
the caste system, as projected by Dumont, seem to be unchanging. In reality, the
caste system has changed in various ways during a period of time. Dumont also
seems to characterize Indian Society as almost stagnant, since he emphasizes the
integrative function of caste system. Dumont has been criticized on the ground that
he is always concerned with the system integration and system maintenance than
with change or conflict. Even Dumont was criticized for his ideas on Purity and
pollution, as they are not universal.