Hindu Eschatology and the Indian Caste System:

Hindu Eschatology and the Indian Caste System: An Example of Structural Reversal

Abstract

Murray Milner, Jr., employs formal sociological methodology to draw a connection-an "elective affinity," in Weber's terms-between the principles governing the Hindu social structure and Hindu eschatology. Not only does Hinduism embody a structured inequality in its assumptions about people in this life, but, he argues, it contains a similar inequality in describing its positions about the world-to-come. Specifically, he argues that the three key eschatological concepts in Hinduism-samsara, karma, and moksa-should be seen as structural reversals of the restrictions imposed on individuals by the caste system. So, samsara-an individual's repeated reincarnation into new lives-can be seen as promising endless social mobility in a society where opportunities for such movement are severely limited by the caste system. Milner is adding Levi-Strauss's notions of structuralism and reversal to Weberian sociological analysis. Milner rejects the idea that such structural reversals need be compensatory. Indeed, he raises doubts about what the direction of causation may be between religious ideas and the social system. He concludes we do not know the direction of causation in the case of Hindu religion and society and thus cannot determine how these reversals were produced.