如何认识印度“种姓社会”——概念、结构与历史过程

How to Understand the“Caste Society”of India:Concepts,Structures and Historical Processes

在中文世界,关于印度社会,婆罗门、刹帝利、吠舍、首陀罗四大种姓之分,作为最普及的种姓知识,常常误导人们对印度种姓现实与历史的理解。本文认为,中文的"种姓"所对应的印度本土概念和西文概念中,瓦尔纳代表了婆罗门教-印度教的经典文本所记载和传承的一套理想社会秩序,在实际历史中,则是一个可以讨价还价的仪式地位参照框架和社会权力的合法性资源。而迦提作为社会单位,一直是一个动态的、具有多维面向的现实。它首先是在社会经济、政治系统中确立了自身,并在仪式领域展开地位竞争。作为学术概念的卡斯特背后,包含了人类学家对种姓阶序的密集关注和理论化努力。今日能对我们带来更多启示的,是对种姓秩序形成过程的历史研究。因为,不存在一个整齐划一、静态的"传统种姓社会"。

In the Chinese-speaking world,the four major zhongxing(caste)as the most popular knowledge of the reality and history of Indian castes can often be quite misleading.One reason is that the Chinese word zhongxing corresponds to the two Indian cultural concepts,varηa and jāti,as well as caste of western languages.varηa represents an ideal social order enshrined in the classic texts of Brahmanism-Hinduism,while in actual history,it has functioned as a reference frame for negotiable ritual status as well as source of legitimate social power.jāti,on the other hand,has always been a dynamic and multi-dimensional reality.It first establishes itself in an economic and political system where it proceeds to compete with each other for ritual status.Behind the academic concept of caste,there has been much anthropological interest in caste hierarchy and substantial effort in theorizing it.The study of the historical formation of caste order should give us some insight into the fact that there is no such thing as a unitary,static"traditional caste society".