This article is an attempt to present the cultural conceptions of exchange that appear in studies of medieval South Indian redistributive processes and the anthropology of Tamil caste, kinship, and marital transactions. As such it does not engage theological understandings of gifts to and from South Indian deities. The approach is sociological, and the argument is that whether the mode is redistributive or donative, Tamil exchanges create social relationships that are embedded in meanings of distinction and precedence. What is handed out is a position in a social order that is first and foremost hierarchical, a rank in a social sequence, so that not merely things and services but social distinctions move through the social landscape.

中文翻译：

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迈向泰米尔纳德邦的交流人类学

本文试图展示出现在中世纪南印度再分配过程和泰米尔种姓、亲属关系和婚姻交易人类学研究中的交换文化概念。因此，它不涉及对南印度诸神的馈赠和馈赠的神学理解。这种方法是社会学的，论点是无论是再分配模式还是捐赠模式，泰米尔语交流都会创造嵌入区别和优先意义的社会关系。所分配的是社会秩序中的一个位置，首先是等级制度，社会序列中的一个等级，因此不仅是事物和服务，而且社会差异也在社会景观中流动。