summary of sanskritization in 500 words
Answers
Answer:
In the traditional society, the occupations practised by castes, their diet, and the customs they observe determine their status in the hierarchy. Thus, practising an occupation such as tanning, butchery puts a caste in a low position.
Eating beef, fish and mutton is considered defiling. Offering animal sacrifices to deities is viewed as a low practice than offering fruit and flowers. As such, castes following these customs, diet habits, etc. adopt the life of the Brahmins to achieve a higher status in the caste hierarchy. This is moving of a low caste upwards in the social structure. Srinivas termed this process as “Sanskritisation”.
M.N. Srinivas first introduced the notion of Sanskritisation to explain the process of cultural mobility in India, in his book ‘Religion and Society among the Coorgs’. In his study of the Coorgs, he found that the lower castes adopted some customs of the Brahmins and gave up some of their own, which were considered to be impure by the higher castes in order to raise their position in the caste hierarchy. For example, they gave up meat- eating, consumption of liquor and animal sacrifice to their deities. They imitated the Brahmins in matter of food, dress and rituals. To denote this process of mobility Srinivas first used the term ‘Brahmanisation’. Subsequently he replaced it by Sanskritisation.
Srinivas preferred the term ‘Sanskritisation’ to ‘Brahmanisation’. Sanskritisation is a broader term, while Brahmanisation is a narrower term. In fact, Brahmanisation is subsumed in the wider process of Sanskritisation. For instance, the Brahmins of the Vedic period consumed alcohol (soma), ate beef, and offered animal sacrifices. But these practices were given up by them in the post-Vedic times, perhaps under the influence of Jainism and Buddhism.
Today, by and large, Brahmins are vegetarians and teetotalers; only the Kashmiri, Bengali and Saraswati Brahmins eat non-vegetarian food. Had the term ‘Brahmanisation’ been used, it would have been necessary to specify which particular Brahmin group was meant.
In fact Srinivas has been “broadening his definition of Sanskritisation from time to time”. Initially he described it as “the process of mobility of lower castes by adopting vegetarianism and teetotal ism to move in the caste hierarchy in a generation or two”.
Latter on, he redefined it as “a process by which a low caste or a tribe or other group changes its customs, rituals, ideology and way of life in the direction of a high twice-born caste”. The second connotation of Sanskritisation is thus much broader because first Srinivas talked of imitation of mere food habits, rituals and religious practices but later on he talked of imitation of ideologies too (which include ideas of Karma, Dharma, Papa, a Punya, Moksha etc.).
By means of these changes in customs and rituals the low caste or tribal people claim a higher position in the caste hierarchy (Srinivas 1952). Srinivas has admitted that he emphasised unduly on the Brahminical model of Sanskritisation and ignored other models – Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra in his book on Coorgs. According to him, the lower castes also imitated the cultural ways of other higher castes such as Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, and the Sudras in various regions of the country. Further, he says, dominant castes set the model for the majority of people living in rural areas including, occasionally, Brahmins.
please please mark as branlist answers please help me out I beg you to please
Answer:
Sanskritization!
In the traditional society, the occupations practised by castes, their diet, and the customs they observe determine their status in the hierarchy. Thus, practising an occupation such as tanning, butchery puts a caste in a low position.
Eating beef, fish and mutton is considered defiling. Offering animal sacrifices to deities is viewed as a low practice than offering fruit and flowers. As such, castes following these customs, diet habits, etc. adopt the life of the Brahmins to achieve a higher status in the caste hierarchy. This is moving of a low caste upwards in the social structure. Srinivas termed this process as “Sanskritisation”.
M.N. Srinivas first introduced the notion of Sanskritisation to explain the process of cultural mobility in India, in his book ‘Religion and Society among the Coorgs’. In his study of the Coorgs, he found that the lower castes adopted some customs of the Brahmins and gave up some of their own, which were considered to be impure by the higher castes in order to raise their position in the caste hierarchy. For example, they gave up meat- eating, consumption of liquor and animal sacrifice to their deities. They imitated the Brahmins in matter of food, dress and rituals. To denote this process of mobility Srinivas first used the term ‘Brahmanisation’. Subsequently he replaced it by Sanskritisation.