31-483: Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard FBA FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology . He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970. Evans-Pritchard was educated at Winchester College and studied history at Exeter College, Oxford , where he was influenced by R. R. Marett , and then as
62-487: A broader sense, also called Brahmanisation, it is a historical process in which local Indian religious traditions become syncretised , or aligned to and absorbed within the Brahmanical religion , resulting in the pan-Indian religion of Hinduism . 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
93-758: A postgraduate at the London School of Economics (LSE). His doctoral thesis (1928) was titled "The social organization of the Azande of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ". At Oxford, he was part of the Hypocrites' Club . At LSE, he came under the influence of Bronisław Malinowski and especially Charles Gabriel Seligman , the founding ethnographer of the Sudan. His first fieldwork began in 1926 with
124-450: A series of lectures on religion that bore Seligman's influence. After his return to Oxford, he continued his research on Nuer . It was during this period that he first met Meyer Fortes and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown . Evans-Pritchard began developing Radcliffe-Brown's program of structural-functionalism . As a result, his trilogy of works on the Nuer ( The Nuer (1940), Kinship and Marriage Among
155-481: Is a term in sociology which refers to the process by which castes or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the dominant castes 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. Sanskritisation has in particular been observed among mid-ranked members of caste-based social hierarchies. In
186-471: Is based on published work and fellows may use the post-nominal letters FBA . Examples of Fellows are Edward Rand ; Mary Beard ; Roy Porter ; Nicholas Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford ; Michael Lobban ; M. R. James ; Friedrich Hayek ; John Maynard Keynes ; Lionel Robbins ; and Rowan Williams . This award -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sanskritization Sanskritisation (or Sanskritization )
217-454: Is fixed for all time. Movement has always been possible, and especially in the middle regions of the hierarchy . A caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, and by Sanskritising its ritual and pantheon. In short, it took over, as far as possible, the customs, rites, and beliefs of the Brahmins, and adoption of
248-529: Is of Hindu Jat in rural North India who did Sanskritisation with the help of Arya Samaj as a part of a social upliftment effort. An unsuccessful example is the Vishwakarma caste's claim to Brahmin status, which is not generally accepted outside that community, despite their adoption of some Brahmin caste traits, such as wearing the sacred thread , and the Brahminisation of their rituals. Srinivas juxtaposed
279-679: The American Philosophical Society in 1968. Evans-Pritchard was knighted in 1971. A number of Festschriften were prepared for him: Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy ( post-nominal letters FBA ) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: The award of fellowship
310-560: The Azande , a people of the upper Nile , and resulted in both a doctorate (in 1927) and his classic Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937). Evans-Pritchard continued to lecture at the LSE and conduct research in Azande and Bongo land until 1930, when he began a new research project among the Nuer . This work coincided with his appointment to the University of Cairo in 1932, where he gave
341-742: The Midieval Babes choral group and Suriya Jayanti , a diplomat and journalist and documentary filmmaker Hannah Jayanti. Evans-Pritchard died in Oxford on 11 September 1973. A Rivers Memorial Medal recipient (1937) and of the Huxley Memorial Medal (1963) he was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland from 1949 to 1951. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958 and
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#1732856121001372-826: The anthropologists also use the term Kshatriyisation and Rajputisation in place of Sanskritisation. Sanskritisation is often aimed to claim the Varna status of Brahmin or Kshatriyas, the two prestigious Varna of the Vedic-age Varna system. One of the main example of it is various non-elite pastoral communities like Ahir , Gopa , Ahar , Goala etc. who adopted the Yadav word as part of Sanskritisation effort to gain upward mobility in society during late 19th century to early 20th century. Similar attempts were made by communities who were historically classed as non-elite tillers like Kurmi and various communities like Koeri , Murao etc. from
403-518: The "correctness" of Zande beliefs about causation. His work focused in on a known psychological effect known as psychological attribution . Evans-Pritchard recorded the tendencies of Azandes to blame or attribute witchcraft as the cause of various mis-happenings. The most notable of these issues involved the deaths of eight Azande people due to the collapse of a termite infested door frame. Evans-Pritchard's empirical work in this vein became well known through philosophy of science and "rationality" debates of
434-751: The 1960s and 1970s involving Thomas Kuhn and especially Paul Feyerabend . During the Second World War Evans-Pritchard served in Ethiopia , Libya , Sudan , and Syria . In Sudan he raised irregular troops among the Anuak to harass the Italians and engaged in guerrilla warfare . In 1942, he was posted to the British Military Administration of Cyrenaica in North Africa, and it was on
465-526: The Brahminic way of life by a low caste seems to have been frequent, though theoretically forbidden. This process has been called ‘Sanskritisation’ in this book, in preference to ‘Brahminisation’, as certain Vedic rites are confined to the Brahmins and the two other twice-born castes. The book challenged the then prevalent idea that caste was a rigid and unchanging institution. The concept of Sanskritisation addressed
496-403: The Nuer (1951), and Nuer Religion (1956)) and the volume he coedited with Meyer Fortes entitled African Political Systems (1940) came to be seen as classics of British social anthropology. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande is the first major anthropological contribution to the sociology of knowledge through its neutral — some would say "relativist" — stance on
527-647: The actual complexity and fluidity of caste relations. It brought into academic focus the dynamics of the renegotiation of status by various castes and communities in India. According to Jaffrelot 2005 , p. 33, a similar heuristic was previously described by Ambedkar (1916, 1917). Jaffrelot goes on to say, "While the term was coined by Srinivas, the process itself had been described by colonial administrators such as E. T. Atkinson in his Himalayan Gazetteer and Alfred Lyall , in whose works Ambedkar might well have encountered it." Virginius Xaxa notes that sometimes
558-510: The basis of his experience there that he produced The Sanusi of Cyrenaica . In documenting local resistance to Italian conquest , he became one of a few English-language authors to write about the tariqa . After a brief stint in Cambridge, Evans-Pritchard became professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College . He remained at All Souls College for
589-509: 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 , papa , maya , samsara , and moksha are
620-409: 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, Sanskritisation is the process whereby local or regional forms of culture and religion – local deities, rituals, literary genres – become identified with
651-474: 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 varrṇāśrama-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
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#1732856121001682-430: The highly influential work Theories of Primitive Religion , arguing against the existing theories of what at the time were called "primitive" religious practices . Arguing along the lines of his theoretical work of the 1950s, he claimed that anthropologists rarely succeeded in entering the minds of the people they studied, and so ascribed to them motivations which more closely matched themselves and their own culture , not
713-474: The late 19th century onwards through their caste organisations by claiming higher social status. Kalwar caste is traditionally involved into distillation and selling of liquor, but around the start of the 20th century, various organisations related to the caste sought to redefine the image of their community through this process. Another example in North India is of Rajput . According to historical evidence,
744-476: The most common Sanskrit theological ideas which become common in the talk of people who are sanskritised. Srinivas first propounded this theory in his D.Phil. thesis at Oxford . The thesis was later brought out as a book, which was an ethnographical study of the Kodava (Coorgs) community of Karnataka . Srinivas writes: The caste system is far from a rigid system, in which the position of each component caste
775-434: The one they were studying. He also argued that believers and non-believers approached the study of religion in vastly different ways, with non-believers being quicker to come up with biological, sociological, or psychological theories to explain religion as an illusion, and believers being more likely to come up with theories explaining religion as a method of conceptualizing and relating to reality. Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard
806-486: The present day Rajput community varies greatly in status, consisting of those with royal lineage to those whose ancestors were petty tenants or tribals who gained land and political power to justify their claim of being Kshatriya . One clear example of Sanskritisation is the adoption, in emulation of the practice of twice-born castes , of vegetarianism by people belonging to the so-called low castes who are traditionally not averse to non-vegetarian food. One more example
837-575: The rest of his career. Among the doctoral students he advised was the late M. N. Srinivas , the doyen among India's sociologists who coined some of the key concepts in Indian sociological discourse, including " Sanskritization ", "dominant caste" and "vote bank." One of his students was Talal Asad , who now teaches at the City University of New York . Mary Douglas 's classic Purity and Danger on pollutions and uncertainty — what we often denote as 'risk' —
868-996: The success of the Lingayat caste in achieving advancement within Karnataka society by such means with the failure of the Vishwakarma to achieve the same. Their position as a left-hand caste has not aided their ambition. Srinivas was of the view that Sanskritisation was not limited to the Hindu castes, and stated that the semi-tribal groups including Himalayas's Pahadis , central India's Gonds and Oraons , and western India's Bhils also underwent Sanskritisation. He further suggested that, after going through Sanskritisation, such tribes would claim that they are castes and hence Hindus. This phenomenon has also been observed in Nepal among Khas , Magar , Newar , and Tharu people . Yogendra Singh has critiqued
899-432: Was a natural science , arguing instead that it should be grouped amongst the humanities , especially history. He argued that the main issue facing anthropologists was one of translation—finding a way to translate one's own thoughts into the world of another culture and thus manage to come to understand it, and then to translate this understanding back so as to explain it to people of one's own culture. In 1965, he published
930-494: Was born in Crowborough , East Sussex , England, the son of an Anglican cleric. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1944. Known to his friends and family as "EP", Evans-Pritchard had five children with his wife Ioma, including journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard , another writer and film festival director Deirdre Evans-Pritchard and Shineen Galloway, founder of EPG Computer Services. Some notable grandchildren are Ruth Galloway of
961-434: Was fundamentally influenced by Evans-Pritchard's views on how accusations, blame and responsibility are deployed though culturally specific conceptions of misfortune and harm. Evans-Pritchard's later work was more theoretical, drawing upon his experiences as an anthropologist to philosophize on the nature of anthropology and how it should best be practiced. In 1950, he famously disavowed the commonly held view that anthropology