A version of this paper was read at the 61st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, November 1962. Grateful acknowledgments are made to the following institutions and individuals: to the Social Science Research Council for awarding a fellowship to conduct research in Ceylon from July 1959 to December 1960; to the Committees for the Comparative Study of New Nations and for Southern Asian Studies, University of Chicago, for jointly awarding a Carnegie Research Fellowship that made possible the writing of this paper; to Talcott Parsons, Robert N. Bellah, Cora DuBois, and others for their comments and suggestions; and especially to Clifford Geertz for critically reviewing the manuscript.
