Published with license by Koninklijke Brill NV | doi:10.1163/15691330-bja10086 © Satanik Pal, 2023 | ISSN: 1569-1322 ( print) 1569-1330 ( online) Comparative Sociology 22 (2023) 389–409 COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY brill.com/coso From Ritual Scapegoats to Actual Scapegoats Different Practices of Scapegoating in Premodern Caste Societies Satanik Pal | ORCID: 0000-0002-1889-8985 Doctoral candidate, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore palsatanik@gmail.com Abstract The following article conducts two case studies into the premodern caste societies of medieval Bengal and early modern Japan. The Pirali Brahmins in Bengal and eta-hinin castes of Japan—both became scapegoats during these periods and were subject to popular disgust and stigma. The common aspects are that they were both close to the centres of power, and that these castes were feared in the ancient period for their supernatural prowess and they served as ritual scapegoats in pollution cleaning rituals. How they both became actual scapegoats from being ritual scapegoats is explored in this article using the framework popularized by the works of René Girard. Keywords Brahmin – eta-hinin – scapegoat – René Girard – caste – fear – stigma 1 Prologue The Story of Parasurama—The Mahabharata records that Parashurama was born to the Brahmin sage Jamadagni and the princess Renuka, a Kshatriya maiden. When Jamadagni suspected Renuka of being unchaste, he ordered Parashurama to cut off her head, which the latter did. Later, to avenge the murder of his father by a Kshatriya, he killed all the male Kshatriyas on earth 21 successive times (for, each time, their wives survived and gave birth to new generations) and filled five lakes with their blood. Fitzgerald 2002