The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c7.22

c7.22

If this supposition of an ethnical and cultural opposition between the specifically Brahmanic west and the less Brahmanised east, the home of Buddhism, is correct, then we can presume that even the social conditions, as we find them here, are different from those of the west; for the social organisation of a people is essentially dependent upon the above-named factors and is probably more so in India than elsewhere; ethnical differences and religious views have principally determined the social physiognomy of the Indian people. To this we have to add a circumstance which even for India cannot be left out of consideration and has to be brought in here for the explanation of the opposition mentioned above, namely, the influence of climate and the soil; climatical and geographical differences have even in India, which is so often called "a world in itself," sometimes even a world which unites the greatest contradictories, played a part in the shaping of the social conditions.