Author: David G Mandelbaum
Publisher: Popular Prakashan
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 665+
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8171540139
Description
This book is in 2 Volumes bound in One. This analysis of Indian society is the most comprehensive study that has been done in recent times.
It brings together the results of modern social approach to reveal the regular patterns that underlie social relations throughout the country; it also outlines some of the principal social and regional variations. Professor Mandelbaum views social relations in India as systems and parts of systems and shows that Indian society has not been static or stagnant, as is often asserted, but has continually been adapted, mainly on the basis of certain deep-laying psychological and social themes.
VOLUME ONE: titled Continuity and Change opens with the concepts of social system and of caste order and then defines the major components of Indian society. Family and kin relations are next discussed, with particular attention to the relevance of family relations in the larger society. These chapters note the cultural effects of kinship networks and the psychological effects of the tensions inherent in family relations.
Hierarchical ranking is central to relations among people of different caste groups, or jatis; the next section of this volume explains how jati rankings are made on the basis of both ritual criteria and secular criteria. Hierarchy is significant within a jati as well as among jhatis. The chapter on jati organization describe how the members of a jati maintain their group and suggest why oppositions within a jati commonly arise.
VOLUME 2 titled Change and Continuity deals mainly with social change. The opening chapters examine the village as a social entity in the context of the changing, larger entities of state and civilizations. Two kinds of social change, recurrent and systemic, are considered. Recurrent changes have come about through social mobility, through religious movements, and through the absorption of tribal people. The final chapters summarize the discussion of psychological forces and social processes in Indian society and appraise the trends of modern social change.
Contents
Contents of volume One
PART I
Introduction
PART II
Family and Kinship Relations
PART III
Relations Among People of Different Jatis
PART IV
Relations within the Jati
Contents of Volume Two
PART V
Village, Region, Civilization
PART VI
Recurrent Change Through Social Mobility
PART VII
Recurrent Change through Religious and Tribal Movements
PART VIII
Continuities and Trends
APPENDIX:
The Concepts of System and of Stratification
Bibliography
Index to Volumes I and II