South Indian Christians, Purity/Impurity, and the Caste System

Death Ritual in a Tamil Roman Catholic Community

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2579527
AutoresDavid Mosse (0000-0002-3800-3536, autor de correspondencia)
Año1996
Volumen2
Número3
Páginas461
Fecha de publicación1996-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3034898
OpenAlexW1964441582
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas18

Can the Indian caste system, often viewed as a Hindu institution, take non-Hindu ritual form? If so, what are the implications for theories which regard notions of purity and impurity as the ideological basis of caste? Rejecting views of caste as rooted in Hindu religious ideas, or as an institution of power divorceable from religion, this article shows how caste relations and rank in a Roman Catholic community in Tamil Nadu are constituted through ritual events. Catholic funeral ritual brings into play discriminations akin to those of purity/impurity. However, these do not define the caste system for local Catholics. Rather, Tamil Catholics (like Hocart) view caste as a royally ordained and historically instituted division of labour in which groups have rights, rank and honour, articulated especially through the church, the festivals of the saints and the associated 'honours' systems. It is here that the caste system most fully takes a Catholic ritual form. The article concludes by examining the significance of notions of purity and impurity as religious ideas among Catholics, and the relationship of these hierarchical concepts to the distinctive beliefs of Catholicism as a world religion

Ancient history · Art · Caste · Ethnology · Literature · Political science · Sociology · Tamil · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies