South Indian Christians, Purity/Impurity, and the Caste System: Death Ritual in a Tamil Roman Catholic Community

Abstract

Can the Indian caste system, often viewed as a Hindu institution, take non-Hindu ritual form? If so, what are the implications for theories which regard notions of purity and impurity as the ideological basis of caste? Rejecting views of caste as rooted in Hindu religious ideas, or as an institution of power divorceable from religion, this article shows how caste relations and rank in a Roman Catholic community in Tamil Nadu are constituted through ritual events. Catholic funeral ritual brings into play discriminations akin to those of purity/impurity. However, these do not define the caste system for local Catholics. Rather, Tamil Catholics (like Hocart) view caste as a royally ordained and historically instituted division of labour in which groups have rights, rank and honour, articulated especially through the church, the festivals of the saints and the associated 'honours' systems. It is here that the caste system most fully takes a Catholic ritual form. The article concludes by examining the significance of notions of purity and impurity as religious ideas among Catholics, and the relationship of these hierarchical concepts to the distinctive beliefs of Catholicism as a world religion.