Caste and Kin in Nepal, India and Ceylon: anthropological studies in Hindu- Buddhist contact zones

This collection of essays, based on
anthropological field research in areas
where Hindu and Buddhist civiliza-
tions dovetail and merge, deals with
problemns arising from the contact
of different ethnic groups. Though
each is written as an independent
study of a social situation, the essays
illuminate from different angles the
problems of the contact and inter
penetration of two distinct ideologies
and ways of life-the Hindu and the
Buddhist.
Among Some of the Himalayan
populations studied there is an overt
dichotomy of Hindu and Buddhist
social attitudes and the authors have
shown the process which their con-
frontation has set in motion.
Several of the authors describe the
effect of this process on social strati-
fication and the emergencee of the
concept of caste in societies who
were originally not part of the Hindu
caste system. The volume contains
moreover accounts of communities
never before investigated by anthro-
pologists, and it provides in particular
three original contributions to the
ethnography of Nepal.