These four volumes, and a planned fifth, Kinship and Religion, are a festschrift in honor of the late M. N. Srinivas, initiated by his students and colleagues in 1982. Although a long delay preceded publication (during which period only some of the essays originally submitted  were revised), we can be glad that they were presented to him before his death, and that they now provide us with an opportunity to reflect upon scholarship he has  inspired  (but  in  this  review  I can discuss  only a few essays).