ABSTRACT

Studies on Indian communities which were denigrated as lower castes and untouchables are yet to fully unravel their cultural, religious, economic, and historical perceptions and practices in India. Scholarship that is sympathetic to the oppressed of caste-power have engaged with caste prejudice and bodily violence under the colonial and postcolonial states. But the questions of language, literature, philosophy, migration, knowledge traditions, and intrinsic cultural self-identity of these discriminated Indians have largely remained unanalysed. In contrast, based on ethnographic field study in Hubli, Karnataka and in northern Tamil Nadu, this article argues that the memory of the marginalized is key to unravelling their alternative cultural and religious history beyond caste. It shows that, on the one hand, the ancient Tamil Buddhist literary corpus forms the deep cultural memory of the marginalized Tamils, while on the other, the organic Buddhist intellectuals, writers, publishers, and practitioners, and their discursive and non-discursive practices have perpetuated the communicative memory of being the descendants of ancient Buddhism. This article further argues that this memory of marginalized Indians points to their sense of castelessness in modern South India.

摘要

对被诋毁为低种姓和贱民的印度社区的研究尚未完全揭示他们在印度的文化、宗教、经济和历史观念和做法。同情种姓权力压迫者的学术研究在殖民地和后殖民国家中涉及种姓偏见和身体暴力。但这些受歧视的印度人的语言、文学、哲学、移民、知识传统和内在文化自我认同等问题在很大程度上仍未得到分析。相比之下，基于胡布利、卡纳塔克邦和泰米尔纳德邦北部的民族志实地研究，本文认为，对边缘化群体的记忆是揭示他们超越种姓的另类文化和宗教历史的关键。这表明，一方面，古老的泰米尔佛教文学语料库形成了被边缘化的泰米尔人的深层文化记忆，而另一方面，有机的佛教知识分子、作家、出版商和修行者，以及他们的话语和非话语实践，延续了作为后代的交流记忆古代佛教的。本文进一步论证，这种对边缘化印度人的记忆表明了他们在现代南印度的无种姓感。