This volume, part of the OIRSSA series, examines the issue of caste through Indian responses to the path breaking work of Louis Dumont. It will feed into courses on Indian sociology across universities. A new epilogue discusses relevant sociological and anthropological disciplinary debates, and crucial changes therein.

R.S. Khare is Professor of Anthropology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA

• Foreword (T.N. Madan); Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Value, Oppositions and Hierarchy: Indian Discussions of Louis Dumont's Work;


• SECTION I: OVERVIEWS AND REVIEWS;


• 1.: Louis Dumont and the Study of Society in India (T.N. Madan);


• 2.: A Theory of 'Pure' Hierarchy (R.S. Khare);


• 3.: Elementary Structure of Caste (Veena Das and J.P.S. Uberoi);


• 4.: The Comparison of Civilizatations: Louis Dumont on India and the West (T.N. Madan);


• SECTION II: DIFFERENT EVALUATIONS;


• 5.: Some Reflections on the Nature of Caste Hierarchy (M.N. Srinivas);


• 6.: On Individualism and Equality: Reply to Louis Dumont (André Béteille);


• 7.: Continous Hierarchies and Discrete Castes (Dipankar Gupta);


• 8.: Imagination against Typification (Dipankar Gupta);


• 9.: Indo-Hierarchy Theory (Arun Bose);


• 10.: Louis Dumont on Individualism (Arun Bose);


• 11.: Indo-centric Theories in the Marxist Framework (Sudipta Kaviraj);


• 12.: Hierarchy and Marriage Alliance in Indian Kinship (Patricia Uberoi);


• SECTION III: POST-COLONIAL COMMENTARIES;


• 12.: An Immanent Critique of Caste (Partha Chatterjee);


• 14.: 'Is Homo Hierarchicus?' (Arjun Appadurai);


• 15.: The Anthropological Discourse on India: Reason and Its Other (Veena Das);


• 16.: Dumontian Sociology and Since: Challenges Facing South Asian Anthropology (R.S. Khare);


• SECTION IV: DUMONT IN HIS OWN WORDS;


• 17.: Change, Interaction, and Comparison (Louis Dumont);


• 18.: On Individualism and Equality (Louis Dumont);


• 19.: Louis Dumont and the Indian Mirror (Interviewer: Christian Delacampagne);


• 20.: A Conversation with Louis Dumont (Interview by Jean-Claude Galey);


• Epilogue; References; Index: Contributors