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A passage to more than India, this major work by Milton Singer records the refinement, through three trips to India and almost two decades of research, of a theory of cultural change. By alternating chapters of field reports with chapters of theoretical analysis, Singer illuminates the central problem of the book—how cultural change is shaped by the interaction between India’s “Great Tradition” of Sanskritic Hinduism and the life of a modern city, Madras.
The method of discovery has been the anthropological one, getting to know another culture in its own terms. The three field trips reported in this volume are explorations of an extended method for a social anthropological study of civilizations. They should be read in this spirit and in the context of the more general issues discussed in the theoretical papers. A roughly chronological sequence is retained in the volume as a whole to make it possible for the reader to retrace the order of discovery.
Singer’s incisive work focuses on one “Great Tradition” in a single city at the present time, but his remarkable insights into the interplay between tradition and modernity cannot but enrich our understanding of cultural and social change in other civilizations, both past and present.
CONTENTS
Part One: India and the Comparative Study of Civilizations
1.    Passage to More than India: A Sketch of Changing European and American Images
2.    Text and Context in the Study of Contemporary Hinduism
Part Two: Structure and Transformation of a Great Tradition
3.    Search for a Great Tradition in Cultural Performances
4.    The Social Organization of Sanskritic Hinduism in Madras City
5.    Urbanization and Cultural Change: Bhakti in the City
Part Three: Myth, Ritual, and Social Change
6.    The Radha-Krishna Bhajanas of Madras City
Part Four: Modernization and Traditionalization
7.    The Social Organization of Indian Civilization
8.    Industrial Leadership, the Hindu Ethic, and the Spirit of Socialism
       Appendix A: List of Companies
       Appendix B: Analysis of Backgrounds of Candidates Applying for Industrial Employment, 1963
Part Five: Beyond Tradition and Modernity
9.    Beyond Tradition and Modernity in Madras