An Excursion. Caste, Class, And Varna^[*]

If we take any summary definition of a "caste system," such as Bouglé's (as given in Dumont [1980, 21]), that a caste system is one that, "divides [a] whole society into a large number of hereditary groups, distinguished from one another and connected together by three characteristics: separation in matters of marriage and contact . . . ; division of labor, each group having, in theory or by tradition, a profession from which their members can depart only within certain limits; and finally hierarchy , which ranks the groups as relatively superior or inferior to one another,"—does Bhaktapur have a caste system? It has a hierarchical system of separated units (separated by marriage and aspects of contact), and the system ensures and controls most of the city's division of labor. It thus has a caste system by these criteria.^[5] The problem with such a definition is that real local groupings, that is, thar s and status levels, are not necessarily characterized by all three of Bouglé's condi-

tions and the idea of "a caste" as a particular group in which all of Bouglé's criteria coexist is not generally useful, although it works for some groups, such as Brahmans and untouchables.

Some thar s resemble the units that are called jati in some other South Asian settings, while the macrostatus levels resemble more closely what David Mandlebaum has called "jati clusters."^[6]Thar s are not always jatis in Mandlebaum's sense, however. In some clusters of thar s constituting a status level, the thar s may consider themselves equal and intermarry, and the cluster of thar s becomes in itself something like a jati , although the cluster itself is not, usually, named. In other clusters there is a disputed or agreed-upon internal hierarchy within the same macro-status level, and thar members do not marry other thar s within the level but only within the thar . It is in this situation where the thar s are like jati , and the thar cluster like a "jati cluster."

By avoiding terms such as "caste," "subcaste," and "jati " and rather discussing the variety of relations of thar s with occupation, marriage arrangements and macrosocial rankings, however, one can present Bhaktapur's status system without forcing it into a procrustean bed of generalizing analytic terms.

There is another kind of status designation superimposed on the system of macrostatus levels. Although many professions are thar -specific, there are some professions as there are elsewhere in South Asia that involve people from many thar s and more than one status level. The main ones in traditional Bhaktapur are farmers (jyapu ) and shopkeepers (sahu ).^[7] There are other groupings that have some unity of definition, characteristics, or interests. There are craftsmen, priests, "unclean" thar s, and in earlier times (but still vividly represented in various symbolic enactments) the city's own royalty, court, and military.^[8] Such groups are associated directly with differentiations in power, kinds of production, and differential control of resources and represent something like a "class" stratification superimposed on "caste." In recent years shifts in the economic and political system have caused the beginning of a dissociation of the relative unifications of the traditional system in which prestige, wealth, power, and purity were all controlled and ranked to reflect a common order. There has been a disruption of this unity for Bhaktapur, and a further disequilibrium produced by people's awareness of their relative poverty and low living standards in comparison to Newars and non-Newars elsewhere in Nepal—particularly Kathmandu and the towns in the relatively wealthy agri-

cultural and industrial area along the southern border of Nepal, the Terai. Some people in Bhaktapur speak of "class," barga (from Nepali). Thus Brahmans and members of other upper status levels talk of themselves as "middle class," madhyambarga , when thinking of larger, modern Nepal and its modern upper class, the pujipatti , people of a wealth and power that has nothing to do with their traditional thar heritage.

The classical concept of varna^[*] , the ideal ancient Vedic four-level hierarchy of Brahman, Ksatriya^[*] , Vaisya^[*] , and Sudra, has as elsewhere in South Asia, a vague residual existence in Bhaktapur. People occasionally speculate on the relation of the macrostatus groups to these ancient classifications and occasionally make use of them to add further metaphorical point to some status distinction,^[9] but the use of varna^[*] is mostly an intellectual game, with no implications for Bhaktapur's society.