The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of the term ’jajmānī’ which is widely used in anthropological literature to define traditional socio-economical relationships in rural India. Does the term ’jajmānī serve only to express the religious connotations of these relations? Or, may this word be used as a scientific concept which provides the organizing principle of these
... [Show full abstract] relationships taken as a system? Throughout the discussions we have kept in mind the pertinent distinctions made by D. F. Pocock in a paper published in 1962 in C. I. S. No VI.A description of the division of rice on the threshing-floor in a present-day Tamilnadu village places jajmānī in the larger setting of the traditional land tenures and the redistribution of the crop at harvest-time among the different parties entitled to a share.The ritual functions of the different non-brahmin service castes of the village are examined. They may be distinguished in two groups which correspond respectively to two different Brahmin roles: that of the brahmin purohit (household priest who acts to preserve the status of the person) and that of the brahmin pujari (temple priest who acts to maintain the order of the universe.) In the first group may be placed, for example, the barber and the laundryman; in the second, the artisans such as the carpenters and blacksmiths and the village watchmen, all of whom are necessary for the yearly agricultural rounds. In each case the hereditary technical know-how of the members of the service castes implies an ability to fulfill their ritual functions.In short, agricultural production was (and remains to a certain degree) organized on the model of a ritual or sacrificial activity both needing a patron-yajamāna together with a body of specialists. Their relationship is asymetrical. The specialist who performs each task is qualified to assume the dangerous, if not debasing, consequences inevitably involved in any act. The brahmin represents an ideal of non-action by contrast with the service castes which are completely involved in action. The members of the dominant castes are the jajmans par excellence. On one hand they collaborate with the brahmins to maintain the universal order which is in practice indistinguishable from the local order and from their own interest. On the other hand they employ the services of the inferior castes for productive purposes. In effect the jajmānī system resumes the traditional divisions of Hindu society.
