Is Sinhala caste simply a weak regional variant of Hindu caste or is it something else entirely? This essay argues that Sinhala caste as found in the territory of the former Kandyan Kingdom has had a distinctive ontology and retains its unique character. The essay begins with an overview of textual, genetic, and archaeological evidence for the origins of caste on the subcontinent. It then turns to the island and the fourth century CE bifurcation of Sinhala society into “high” and “low”; this duality’s persistence into the second millennium CE; its elaboration in the Kandyan Kingdom’s bureaucratic political economy; and the dissonance between this Sinhala “cartwheel” model of collective inequality and the Brahmanical “ladder” of colonial powers and the Sinhala elite. The essay concludes by examining how the ongoing discordance between these two models of Sinhala caste plays out in people’s lives through a case study of a non-elite caste community.

僧伽罗种姓只是印度教种姓的一个弱地区变种还是完全是另外一种种姓？本文认为，在前康提王国境内发现的僧伽罗种姓具有独特的本体论并保留了其独特的特征。本文首先概述了次大陆种姓起源的文本、遗传和考古证据。然后转向该岛和公元四世纪僧伽罗社会分为“高级”和“低级”的问题；这种二元性一直持续到公元第二个千年；它在康提王国的官僚政治经济中的阐述；以及集体不平等的僧伽罗“侧手翻”模式与殖民列强和僧伽罗精英的婆罗门“阶梯”之间的不和谐。本文最后通过对非精英种姓社区的案例研究，探讨了僧伽罗种姓两种模式之间持续存在的不一致如何在人们的生活中发挥作用。