Chakravarti Uma

Fitzgerald James L.

Olivelle Patrick

Trautmann T.R.

 The article attempts to provide an understanding of caste by exploring non-Brahmanical texts that may have circulated widely, in this case exemplified by the shorter Pali Jātaka stories that were written down by the mid-first millennium AD. The narratives appear to point to the coexistence of multiple, not necessarily harmonious, understandings of caste. The narratives often invoke other identities, which do not fit in within the varṇa–jāti framework. The contexts within which these occur would suggest that these were part of the commonly available vocabulary of both narrators and audience. The narratives also explicitly question Brahmanical pretensions. Overall, then, we can suggest that while the Brahmanical prescriptive texts envisaged a caste order that was all-encompassing and all-pervasive, there were also alternative perceptions available in early India. </jats:p

Contextualising caste: Co-option, circumvention and contestation as exemplified in the Jātakas

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