ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly introduces the reader to the wider context of multiple pottery-making traditions of India and specifically of Bengal. It then focuses on the sociological category of potters within the sociology of caste and occupations in India but gradually moves on to discuss in detail the patterns of local caste hierarchies of Bengal as a distinct sociocultural region and the position of the potters in the schema of social stratification by drawing upon the local history of the community, their myth of origin and patterns of caste mobility. It summaries how the shift from caste category of potters to an occupational category of idol-makers or mritshilpis with particular reference to the rise of idol-making as an art, the techniques of work and modern developments in the technique thereby establishing mritshilpis as a distinctive community. The processes that consolidate this identity are, the socio-religious meaning/status creation that is important in a caste-based society, and the cultural meaning as a unique regional identity which may be further derived from the socio-religious identity of “authentic” or “traditional.”
