ABSTRACT
The interplay of water, caste and gender in Hindu society, in which water both is polluted by the touch of the impure and purifies those who are so polluted, is evident in the lives of women and men living in a group of Himalayan villages in India. This chapter describes the historical evolution of the beliefs that underpin today’s Hindu society, and reviews the particular constraints faced by Dalits and women. Water is considered to have intrinsic purity and the capacity to absorb pollution and to carry it away. Water is also very prone to pollution, by touch or association with things and people considered impure. Water is considered both purified as well as the purifier. The concept of purification is thus essentially spiritual, rather than moral and/or physical. Practices of caste, gender and class stratification became established in India during the evolution from a hunter-gathering to a pastoral and then eventually agrarian society.
