Talk by Ajay Rao: Historicizing Caste Exclusion
Historicizing Caste Exclusion by Ajay Rao, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, March 21, 2024 at 4:00 PM EDT, Birks Building, Room 100 (Senior Common Room), 3520 University Street.
The argument in Ved膩nta interpretations of the apa艣奴dr膩dhikara峁嘺 (1.3.34-38) for a rigid hierarchy of knowledge represents perhaps the most extensive evidence available to us of premodern theoretical justifications for caste exclusion and the cultural oppression of 艣奴dras and Dalits. Taking these Sanskrit philosophical abstractions as socially symbolic acts, I examine how they give voice to brahminical anxieties about non-brahmin cultural power and knowledge at a time when "艣奴dra" had undergone radical transformation as a social category.
From 平特五不中's School of Religious Studies and Institute of Islamic Studies.