1.
LITTLE AND GREAT TRADITION
Dr Saroj
 A conceptual approach which helps in studying social change. This was first used
by Robert Redfield in studying Mexican Village
 It was Robert Redfield who talked about LITTLE COMMUNITY
 For him little community : Small in size
Self sufficient
Distinctiveness
Relatively isolated
 Redfield did not mention anything about traditions or great tradition
 Milton Singer and McKim Marriott influenced by studies made by Redfield
conducted their intensive study in Indian village.
 They elaborated the original model of Redfield in the light of data generated from
Indian village.
 Yogendra Singh commented on the construction of little and great traditions in
Indian villages by these two anthropologists.
 There are two ideas basically on which this approach is based upon
1 Civilization
2 Social organization of tradition
 When we study Durkheim he talked about two different kinds of societies
1 Mechanical society
2 Organic society
 There are two stages in which the civilization grows
1 Evolutionary view (Durkheim’s mechanical and organic society’s concept)
2 Civilization or structure of tradition grows in two stages
Heterogenetic encounters: level will be of elite class of society or reflected few levels
(great traditions)
(this is an evolutionary view because the level you are going is from narrow to
broader)
how social solidarity maintained in these
two different societies
Orthogenetic or indigenous (local)
Folk or peasant level (Little traditions)

2.
 Important thing is that there is constant interaction between the two levels that
means they are not completely independent of each other. They have some kind
of interaction.
Social Structure of Little Tradition: it includes folk artists, local story tellers,
regional poets, dancers etc.
Social Structure of Great Tradition: it includes ritual leaders, teachers, educators,
reciters, corporate groups, charismatic leaders etc.
When we look at the change that has happened in India it is very simple to understand
that we have come from orthogenetic to heterogenetic.
The reason is that we assume that:
All civilization starts from primary level i.e
Orthogenetic (primary level) because the society earlier was very simple. It was
agriculture based (peasant society)
It is safe to assume that all the civilization started from orthogenetic level
Then gradually there was contact with other civilization starts- Reason:
Colonialism
Imperialism
Trade etc.
Then the heterogenetic process started taking place. As a result there was a global
and universal pattern of culture. We are not confined in the same culture that we have
year ago. We have developed. We have evolved and there are many changes because
of the contact with other civilizations.
Little Tradition: The folk and peasantry follow the little tradition i.e the village
tradition. The little tradition is the local tradition of great tradition tailored according
to the regional and village conditions vary from region to region. The carriers of little
tradition includes folk artists, medicine men, tellers of riddles, proverbs and stories,
poets and dances etc.
Great Tradition: The elite follows the great tradition. The great tradition consists of
the tradition contained in Epics, Puranas, Brahmanas and other classical Sanskritic
texts. The role and statuses of Sita and Draupadi constitute the parts of great tradition.
The great tradition is found clearly in twice born castes especially priests, ritual
leaders of one kind or others
We came in contact with many
other civilizations

3.
 Some of the corporate groups follow the traits of civilization and the great
tradition. The pattern is uniform.
 Robert Redfield made fundamental distinctions between Great and Little
traditions roughly equivalent to higher and lower.
 Both Milton Singer and McKim Marriott argue on the strength of data generated
from the villages of their study that the cultural content of social structure at the
level of little tradition in a village witnesses change ---due to its own internal
growth
--- due to its contact with
great tradition
 The great tradition also witnesses universalized pattern of culture resulting from
its interaction with the village or little tradition.
 Milton Singer had made certain statements:
The Indian civilization has evolved out of pre existing folk and regional cultures
This aspect of civilization constructed great tradition i.e Ramayana, Mahabharata and
other religious scriptures.
 This great tradition maintained its continuity in India's diverse regions, villages,
castes and tribes.
 The cultural continuity of great tradition is based upon the idea of common
cultural consciousness throughout the country.
 Common cultural consciousness formed through sacred books and sacred objects.
 Villages borrows norms and values from the great traditions of country’s
civilization.
 In this borrowing he makes changes according to his village local conditions and
history.
Milton Singer visited in India in 1954-55 and made a study of Madras city. He had
worked a lot in the contemporary study of religious traditions in India.
He had done a deep study on the great and little traditions of Madras and South India.
Also he had done textual and contextual analysis of written and oral traditions
Singer had opinion that Little and Great tradition interact with each other.

4.
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