Sanskritisation
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Who Made the Brahmins and the Goddess Vegetarian?
Devdutt Pattanaik places the first fully vegetarian texts in medieval Gujarat, under Jain and Muslim influence. Earlier Indian sources complicate that.
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Are All Postcolonial Nations Brahmanical Constructs?
X.T.M asks whether postcolonial states are Brahmanical constructs, arguing that every successor elite preserves the borders it inherits. He draws on caste mobility, Sanskritisation and Radcliffe’s line, and notes the…
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Not yet a requiem for the Deities of rural India
Indosaurus argues that folk Hinduism, practised mainly by lower castes and centred on sacrifice and possession, is more exposed than its scriptural form to conversion, Sanskritisation and urbanisation, and fears…
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A Dalit writes on Oppresive Hindi
An extract from an essay on Hindi, quoting historian Sumit Sarkar that literary Hindi was bound up with Hindu-revivalist movements, and arguing that it carried Brahminical and communal impulses from…
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Why India looks West not East
Answering Razib’s question on why India does not look towards China, the author offers three reasons: Sindhi diaspora ties, lingering colonial institutions, and the claim that India’s high culture was…
