A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.10

c6.10

[^ *]: Vide Ch. IV. Infra. [^ †]: Ibid thought which arose from time to time under the congenial influence of the fruitful genius of the people and their traditional tolerance of free thinking. The philosophical school of Chārvāka, to mention only one instance of this class, became the target of unmeasured attack from the most diversified schools of thought and it failed to take root on the Indian soil. The distinctive aim of catholic Hinduism, however, was to co-ordinate the material as well as the spiritual interests of men instead of exalting either of these at the expense of the other. The Hindu view of life, the view that is common to the Brahminical, the Buddhist and the Jaina, schools of thought, implies two paths or processes which wonderfully complement each other in the progress towards self-realisation,—the path of enjoyment (pravritti) and that of renunciation (nivritti). While liberation (mokṣa) is conceived to be the goal of the latter path, the former involves a co-ordination of the three ends, viz, virtue (dharma), pleasure (kāma) and wealth (artha), or at least the pursuit of the second and the third under the guidance and direction of the first.∗ This profound appreciation of the totality of human interests lies, unless we are greatly mistaken, at the root of the sociological ideas of the Hindus.