summary of SANSKRITIZATION in 500 words for B.A 3rd sem.
Answers
Explanation:
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.
Answer:
Explanation:
In sociology, Sanskritisation (Indian English) or Sanskritization (American English, Oxford spelling), is the process by which caste or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the dominant or upper castes. It is a process similar to "passing" in sociological terms. This term was made popular by Indian sociologist M. N. Srinivas in the 1950s.
In a broader sense, also called Brahmanization,[4] it is a historical process in which local Indian religious traditions become aligned to and absorbed within the Brahmanical tradition, creating the pan-Indian tradition of Hinduism.
Definition Edit
Srinivas defined Sanskritisation as a process by which
a low or middle Hindu caste, or tribal or other group, changes its customs, ritual, ideology, 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 the claimant class by the local community
In a broader sense, Sanskritization is
the process whereby local or regional forms of culture and religion – local deities, rituals, literary genres – become identified with the 'great tradition' of Sanskrit literature and culture: namely the culture and religion of orthodox, Aryan, Brahmans, which accepts the Veda as revelation and, generally, adheres to varnasrama-dharma.
In this process, local traditions ("little traditions") become integrated into the "great tradition" of Brahmanical religion,disseminating Sanskrit texts and Brahmanical ideas throughout India, and abroad. This facilitated the development of the Hindu synthesis,in which the Brahmanical tradition absorbed "local popular traditions of ritual and ideology."
According to Srinivas, Sanskritisation is not just the adoption of new customs and habits, but also includes exposure to new ideas and values appearing in Sanskrit literature. He says the words Karma, dharma, paap, maya, samsara, and moksha are the most common Sanskrit theological ideas which become common in the talk of people who are sanskritised.