The term Sanskritisation was Coined and popularised by M.N. Srinivas, an eminent social anthropologist in his book Religion and Society Among the Coorgs of South India (Oxford, 1952).
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Sanskritisation refers to a change in the hierarchical caste system when certain castes that are ranked low in the caste hierarchy are able to elevate and enhance their position by adopting and emulating the socio-cultural beliefs, values, habits, customs and rituals of castes that are ranked higher than them.
Based on his ethnographic research in Rampura village in Karnataka, Srinivas produced a detailed explanation of the phenomenon of Sanskritisation in ‘A Note on Sanskritisation and Westernisation (Far Eastern Quarterly, 1956)’.
Initially, ‘Sanskritisation’ referred to the lower castes’ adoption of the “Brahmanical” ways of life.
But gradually, the process also involved the adoption of the practices and rites of the locally dominant caste in a particular region, which included non-Brahmin castes which were politically powerful, socio-economically influential and ritually higher in the local caste hierarchy.
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