''The Remembered Village'' is a 1978 ethnological work by

M. N. Srinivas Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas (1916–1999) was an Indian sociologist and social anthropologist. He is mostly known for his work on caste and caste systems, social stratification, Sanskritisation and Westernisation in southern India and th ...

. The book is about the villager who lives in the small village, named as Rampura in the state of

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

, then called Mysore. It is notable for the absence of fieldnotes as a base for the work, which is considered standard in ethnography following the standards set by Bronislaw Malinowski in ''

Argonauts of the Western Pacific ''Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea'' is a 1922 ethnological work by Bronisław Malinowski, which has had enormous impact on the ethnographic genre. The bo ...

'' as they were lost due to arson, and elicited fierce debate in the anthropological community due to its unorthodox origin, among other factors. The book is noted for its concern on the aesthetic, flowing prose and the significant role of the ethnographer himself, a marked departure from earlier works such as

Evans-Pritchard Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Knight Bachelor, Kt Fellow of the British Academy, FBA Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, FRAI (21 September 1902 – 11 September 1973) was an English anthropology, anthropologist w ...

's studies on the

Nuer Nuer may refer to: * Nuer people * Nuer language The Nuer language (Thok Naath) ("people's language") is a Nilotic language of the Western Nilotic group. It is spoken by the Nuer people of South Sudan and in western Ethiopia (region of Gamb ...

, which is written with a more objective voice.

Background

The

caste Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultura ...

system in India has long been the subject of scholarly interest, but there was a distinct lack of ethnographic material on it as noted by Radcliffe-Brown. Inspired by this and other works such as that of Robert Redfield and Fei Hsiao-Tung, M.N. Srinivas set out to a remote part of India to carry out fieldwork as part of the position he was offered by his teacher,

and ended up choosing Rampura due to his fluency in

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

and several emotional factors, including his ties to Mysore and being awed by the local view.

Overview

The book consists of eleven chapters. General summaries of each chapter are included below. * Chapter I: A description of the educational background of Srinivas and key theoretical influences, including Radcliffe-Brown,

and his decision to pick Rampura as the fieldwork site * Chapter II: A brief overview of Rampura * Chapter III: Three important men; The Headman, Kulle Gowda, and Nadu Gowda * Chapter IV: Role of agriculture, and the general preoccupation of land by the villagers * Chapter V: The role of sex in division of labour and sexual urges of the villagers * Chapter VI: Inter-Caste relationships, purity and pollution plus discussions on Harijans and Muslims * Chapter VII: Compounding of caste hierarchy by land possession, and the landowner-client relationship * Chapter VIII: Changes of the village since 1948 to around 1952 * Chapter IX: Quality of social relations and reciprocity * Chapter X: Role of religion, regarding pan-Indian deities in Hinduism and local deities * Chapter XI :The author's recollections of his last few days in Rampura

Theoretical concepts

Sanskritisation

The all-India ''

varna Varna may refer to: Places Europe *Varna, Bulgaria, a city in Bulgaria **Varna Province **Varna Municipality ** Gulf of Varna **Lake Varna **Varna Necropolis *Vahrn, or Varna, a municipality in Italy *Varniai, a city in Lithuania * Varna (Šaba ...

'' and the local ''jati'', based on land ownership, often are not strictly the same, with Brahmins and

Lingayats Lingayatism or Veera Saivism is a Hindu denomination based on Shaivism. Initially known as ''Veerashaivas'', since the 12th-century adherents of this faith are known as ''Lingayats''. The terms ''Lingayatism'' and '' Veerashaivism'' have been ...

higher in the caste order often being clients lower in the ''Varna'' order. The disparity in rank between the economic status and the ritual status could result in high ''jati'' classes moving up the ''varna'' hierarchy by adopting practices of higher castes.

Dominant caste

The concept of dominant caste in the book, where the peasant caste has much practical power, including influential members such as the headman, his lineage and the God's house lineage, could be related to their large numbers viv-à-vis the smaller numbers of the Brahmins, and could be used to explain other social phenomena, such as prestige among English trade unions.

Reception

David Francis Pocock David Francis Pocock (3 September 1928 – 25 November 2007) was a British anthropologist whose main field of study was the people and diaspora of the Indian state of Gujarat, and in particular the Patidar community of that state. David Pocock ...

criticized Srinivas for putting excessive sociological jargon for his supposed audience,"the educated layman" and yet not sufficient to justify it as scholarly work, and also noted on the question of subjectivity. Another common form of criticism relates to the shortcomings of structural-functionalism, the basis of the work as taught by Evans-Pritchard in the vein of Durkheim