Further, through Sanskritization, i.e., by changing customs, rituals, ideology and way of life towards upper castes people belonging to a particular caste claim a superior status on the caste hierarchy. This may or may not be granted by others and sometimes the matter reached the king who gave the final verdict. At times castes would fight violently till a status claimed by them was granted to them. Srinivas maintained that Sanskritization, however, led only to positional change but not to structural change. This means that the perceived positions of different castes may change but it would not affect the Hindu belief in caste hierarchy. To be a Hindu is to belong to a caste with a relative place in the hierarchical division.

Srinivas agrees that Sanskritization was only one source of mobility in Hindu society. Initially, he observed that Sanskritization means emulating the life styles of Brahmins. In his later works, however, he maintained that Indian culture being highly varied and the beliefs about status of a Varna being dependent on local culture, there were several models of Sanskritization: Brahmin model, Kshatriya model, Vaisya model; and Shudra model. Thus Brahmin model was only one of them. The concept of dominant caste supplemented the concept of Sanskritization in some way. At some places if the tribal groups were dominant, the other groups followed the tribal customs and thus one can also speak of a tribal model of Sanskritization.

The following example shows the process. Imagine that an outsider or an untouchable group decides to enter the caste society. By accumulating power they can enter the caste hierarchy at the level of Kshatriyas. Then the people belonging to the caste of genealogists and bards create genealogical links and myths about them. Subsequently the other untouchable groups acquire the high Kshatriya status. Secular power influences ritual ranking.