Homo Hierarchicus

{{Short description|1966 book by Louis Dumont}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}

Homo Hierarchicus: Essai sur le système des castes (1966) is Louis Dumont's treatise on the Indian caste system.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XsOtRGdvIigC&q=homo+hierarchicus|title=Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications|last=Dumont|first=Louis|date=1980|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226169637|language=en}} It analyses the caste hierarchy and the ascendancy tendency of the lower castes to follow the habits of the higher castes. This concept was termed as Sanskritisation by MN Srinivas.{{Cite journal|last=Srinivas|first=M. N.|date=1956|title=A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization|journal=The Far Eastern Quarterly|volume=15|issue=4|pages=481–496|doi=10.2307/2941919|issn=0363-6917|jstor=2941919|s2cid=162874001 }}

He states that the ideology of caste system is fundamentally contrary to our idea of egalitarian society and arises from the nature, conditions and limitations of realisation of such a society. We can not restrict ourselves to understand caste system only as a form of 'Social stratification'.{{Citation needed|date=March 2019}}