India, April 11 -- The antecedents of caste are generally mired in speculation and popular mythography. Among modern scholars of the subject, the question of the past, and therefore, that of religion, religiosity, culture, and tradition, are placed within the curated Sanskritic or Indological stream. This means that, apart from reading widely and having an adaptive appetite for the period, enthusiastic scholarship also demands a study of the present. Contemporary scholarship on caste is dominated by the social sciences. The rise of democratic opportunities for the outcastes along with self-reflection done at the state and societal level has provoked a colourful curation of intellectual motifs within these disciplines. Still, there is an a...