the 'new' colonialism

billbartlett at dodo.com.au billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Thu Nov 21 13:58:05 PST 2002


At 7:14 AM +0530 21/11/02, Ulhas Joglekar wrote:


> > But clans are not analogous to castes, as I understand caste. So this
>suggestion, that castes originated in ancient times, would be quite
>misleading.
>
>I am not a historian, but all standard works on ancient Indian history
>discuss the caste system. I have already referred to Marxist historian D.D.
>Kosambi's work, The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical
>Outline. Romila Thapar's Interpreting Early India or A.L.Basham's The Wonder
>that was India can be consulted.

I am certainly no historian either and I'm well out of my depth in respect to the history of India. Which seems impossibly complex to me. However I was referring to clans in the context of tribal societies and most tribal societies are pre-history. Our understanding of tribal society in general must be inferred from those that survive relatively unchanged into historical times and of course from customs which are passed down to civilised cultures.

Caste may have some roots in tribal clan structure but I was objecting to your statement that "Prohibition on intermarriages between members belonging to different castes in a tribal society has been taken as the essential nature of caste system." Perhaps I may be misinterpreting what you mean by "tribal society" though? I understand it to refer to societies basically undifferentiated by caste or clan.

No doubt the tribal origins of modern Indian culture(s) are largely outside the field of history, so it is odd to conclude that "castes seem to have originated in Ancient times". If you mean by "ancient times", pre-historic tribal societies as I inferred.

I see that I may have inferred wrong. But if you were referring to antecedent societies within the historical period, then you must be using the term "tribal society" in a way I don't understand. Because Indian history does surely not provide much detail about the early tribal societies, probably numbering in the thousands, which preceded and evolved into the Indian civilisation of the historical period?

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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