Peasant movement studies based solely on economic and political data may miss important social and cultural elements in the constellation of forces that generate those movements. The process of leadership entry—that is, the legitimation of the outside organizers to the peasants—has seldom been a subject of systematic investigation. However, I suggest that examination of what makes peasants accept as leaders persons who are in many respects different from themselves may yield important insights into the nature of the problems of organizing peasants.

Baniyas (moneylender/traders) have a bad reputation. Though the functions they perform are similar, they in no way enjoy the respectability and admiration accorded bankers and businessmen, their brethren in spirit. They are castigated by villager and scholar alike as shylocks, parasites who—if given half a chance—squeeze clients dry through exorbitant interest rates on loans and on goods-on-credit. In an Indian village, one quickly becomes aware of the sometimes fearful respect they command. One approaches them for credit as a supplicant; for the defaultor, there is no more distressing sight than the Baniya at the door demanding to go over accounts. Baniyas are far from lovable; their popular image as fawning, cowardly, greedy sorts who take undue advantage of the weak while ingratiating themselves with the powerful appears singularly well deserved.

Hanumān, the ancient monkey-divinity of India: for many, he represents the force of life in man's struggle to exist. He is most famous for his devotion to the god-king Rāma, and for his exploits as leader of the monkey army that helped save Rāma's princess from the demon-king of Laṅkā. Yet in the Bhojpurī-speaking area of western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, Hanumān is a god of great importance in his own right. There he is worshiped as the epitome of strength and vitality; popular legends associate him not so much with the self-restrained Rāma as with Śiva, possessor of creative and destructive energy.

Lost texts are common in the history of ancient Indian literature. Many must have perished altogether—even from memory—victim to neglect and hostile insects; a great number survive only as fragments or brief quotations embedded in other works, and sometimes only as titles. One of these lost works is Bṛhatkathā (“The Great Romance”). Legend tells us that the poet Guṇāḍhya composed it in Paiśācī, an obscure dialect of Prakrit. Now it exists only as a title; but once, to some commentators, it was a famous and important work. Witness Govardhānācāry's high esteem, for example—”We pay homage to the poets of the Śrī Rāmāyaṇa, the Bhārata, and the Bṛhatkathā,” or his remark, “Who would not say Guṇāḍhya is this very same man [Vyāsa] reborn?” Yet, to most scholiasts Guṇāḍhya and his illustrious work are but a memory and a faint one at that. How fortunate it is then that the work has survived, testament to its once great popularity, in several ver¬sions: three in Sanskrit, one in Prakrit, and one in Old Tamil.

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) is quite possibly the best-known, most widely studied, and most frequently quoted writer of the early Meiji period. More of his writings have been translated into English than those of any other nonliterary Meiji writer. So much attention is given to Fukuzawa that he often appears as the Meiji intellectual. One recent textbook describes him as nothing less than “the most influential man in Meiji Japan outside government service.” In another description he is portrayed as “one of the most remarkable” of men, one of that small number of men who move history through their own personal power, and “the man who above all others” explained Western material and spiritual culture to Meiji Japanese. Overall, scholars have been only slightly more reticent in describing Fukuzawa's importance than he himself was. In his own view, the reforms undertaken in the early Meiji period were influenced by himself to such a degree that it was appropriate to say “If I did not chiefly initiate them, I think I may have been indirectly influential in bringing them about.”