Seven Kinds of Hierarchy in Homo Hierarchicus

Abstract

I began work of this paper by trying to specify different kinds of hierarchy that Louis Dumont uses in Homo Hierarchicus.' Such an inventory, I thought, might be helpful to those who find book difficult to read. Unexpectedly, in course of exercise, I began to uncover Dumont's argument and to find what I take to be solutions to two of problems I had continued to have with this monumental work, even though it had been amply reviewed and discussed.2 I had been troubled by mystery of the mantle of our Lady, 'that odd process of encompassing and encompassed, and lack of fit between Dumont's model of Indian caste system and that of his AngloAmerican-trained colleagues.4 In paper below, I present inventory, argument, and solutions mentioned, as well as their implications for an understanding of Homo Hierarchicus by empirically oriented social scientist. Let us begin by taking Dumont's own vantage point, at what Yalman has referred to as watershed between Anglo-American schools of empirical philosophy and behaviourism and French rationalism.' At least for moment, let us accept Dumont's conviction that ideas are facts of greater importance than observable behavior. He defines caste system of India as system of ideas and values, a formal, comprehensible, rational system, a system in intellectual sense of term.'6 With this ideational tilt, Dumont confronts Indological conception of Hindu ideology-a conception partly inspired by French scholars interested in content of ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts: Bougle, Hocart, Mauss with Anglo-American-trained social anthropologists' field monographs, which reflect their concern with power in intergroup relations. These latter scholars-especially M. N. Srinivas, Adrian Mayer, and F. G. Bailey borrowed from Africanist anthropologist, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, concept of dominant clan; and they adapted it to fit Indian local caste system by referring to dominant caste.' They have also followed Evans-Pritchard in his definition of social structure as