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Description:
The article explains how the Himalayas have long provided a contact zone for Hindus and diverse tribal groups. The term tribal sometimes carries connotations of primitiveness and social backwardness, but here the term is used by author purely for the purpose of brevity and collectively refers to all the cultural and linguistic groups of Nepal that anthropologists commonly distinguish from the parbatiya Hindu groups. The article tries to examine the Hindu-tribal relationship and follows their state-promulgated legal code. The author argues that the Hindu-tribal dichotomy loses its sharpness in Nepal to a far greater extent than it does in India. The articles includes the names and order of hierarchy based on the old code of 1854 which presents a four fold classification of society. This social universe is paraphrased as "car varna chhatis jat". (Rajeev Ranjan Singh 2007-01-16)
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