Hindu Administrative Institutions c6.s4.44

c6.s4.44

joys and pleasures and even sorrows of the world, and leads a life of complete renunciation tending to *mokṣa* or salvation, the last *puruṣārtha* which is the supreme end of life. That this was in practice in ancient India is in evidence in the extant sacred books of the Hindus. The ancient sages and seers thus established what we can now regard as a well ordered life, by means of which the *puruṣārthas* may be realized. It was a living principle and had a special meaning and purpose. According to Dr. Ananda Coomarasvāmi ‘What nevertheless remains as the most conspicuous special character of the Indian culture is its purposive organization of the society in harmony with a definite conception of the meaning and ultimate purpose of life.’ What distinguishes the Indian social structure from western society is the pluralism of the group, intermediate between the state and the individual. The advantage of the Indian division lies in the fact that it finds it possible to absorb the activity of the individual in different forms of social grouping, the individual merging himself in the general will of the state.