ABSTRACT
Diagram is a resourceful concept in Deleuze that can be usefully applied in the analysis of different historical formations and cultural strata. It stands for a schemata or abstract machine that is found to be actualised in diverse domains and multiplicities with characteristic differences. It is a piece of virtual technology that can be detached from any specific instance and applied to another one with equal efficacy and validity. Perhaps the most important instantiation is Foucault’s disciplinary diagram, famously known as the Panopticon, which began with the prison and later percolated into different multiplicities such as schools, factories, military, asylum, and so on. It is argued in this chapter that caste is such a diagram in the case of India, which becomes functional in diverse sites and conjunctures with characteristic variations. Two diagrammatic variations of Brahminism, one relating to Tamil brahmins and another one drawn from the Visvakarma caste of Kerala, are examined in detail.
