Seeing through the law: A debate on caste in medieval Dharmasastra

Abstract

It is well known that the legal texts of the Hindu tradition known as Dharmaśāstra vigorously defend caste and social hierarchy. Studies of the nature of caste in this textual tradition, however, have overlooked the important argument that legal texts and categories define and determine caste status. This article examines two major commentaries of the Dharmaśāstra tradition from medieval India and shows how they fit into a wider philosophical debate about the nature of caste as a social institution. With comparisons to studies of race in America, I emphasise the instability of sight or vision as the determinate factor in the social construction of caste. Rather, following medieval Hindu law authors, I argue that caste, like race, is produced and sustained through the cultivation and promulgation of legal rules and categories. The constitutive role of the law in the reproduction of caste thus has a deeper history that merits further attention to understand the sociology of caste.