This study proposes a radical alternative to prevailing theories of the caste system, which either build on indigenous rationalizations of the Brahman's supremacy or reduce hierarchy to material factors. Drawing on a wide range of historical and ethnographic sources as well as four years' fieldwork, Declan Quigley presents a comparative approach which locates caste-organized communities in the context of complex agrarian societies generally. At the heart of caste, he argues, there is a tension between the centralizing forces of kingship, with its associated ritual, and decentralizing forces of kinship. Dr Quigley believes that it is this tension, rather than Brahminical ideology, which generates the characteristic patterns of hierarchy and the preoccupation with purity and pollution.