Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s17: The Culture-Complex and "Old Masters"

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c10.s17

Language
English

The Culture-Complex and "Old Masters"

c10.s17.1

It is only when the indologist is adequately oriented to the pluralistic culture-complex of India as of other regions that it will be possible to see at once how unhistorical and unfounded is the presentation of Indian thought-data in the works that are generally published about Indian philosophy, viewpoint and outlook on life etc.

c10.s17.2

One of the latest publications on India which is as weak in objective sense as in the anthropological basis of comparative culture-history is Betty Heimann's *Studien zur Eigenart Indischen Denkens* (Tübingen 1930). The "Eigenart" (pecularity) of Indian thought, as discussed by her, should really appear to be but common to the most diverse races, regions, religions and climates, should a researcher care to go into the institutions of positive sociology in a scientific manner.

c10.s17.3

The author makes statements like the following :²⁷

c10.s17.4

²⁷ B. Heimann : *Studien zur Eigenart Indischen Denkens* (Tübingen 1930) pp. 238-239.

c10.s17.5

"Not only in economico-religious but also in socio-psychological aspects the sense of the individual disappears among Indians in the community feeling. In stead of individuals creating the society, in India the individual is merged in a community."

c10.s17.6

The *Studien* contains such generalizations from beginning to end. That even in 1930 a student of culture can proceed to work in this manner indicates how powerfully the traditional *orientalisme* has misled the scholarship of Indianists in the directions of subjective, one-sided and monistic prejudices bearing on the East and the West. Another piece of "conventional" indology, weak as it is in positive historical data and cultural perspectives, is Albert Schweitzer's *Die Weltanschauung der indischen Denker* or "The World-View of Indian Thinkers"

c10.s17.7

(Munich 1935). He finds in Indian thought nothing but the negation of the world and life.

c10.s17.8

The anthropologico-sociological analysis of the foundations of domestic and social ceremonies, as examined by Hillebrandt in *Ritualliteratur* (pp. 3-8), was well calculated to cry halt to such "*Eigenart*"-philosophies. And of course the data of "new indology" as exhibited during the last generation from diverse fields are eminently adapted to counteract these unobjective tendencies. Some of the interpretations of Hindu culture by Heinrich Lüders and Helmuth von Glasenapp bear testimony to new orientations.²⁸

c10.s17.9

²⁸ *Supra*, pp. 40-45. For the recognition of Hindu positivism by M. Winternitz see his "Ethics in Brahmanical Literature" (*Prabuddha Bharata*, February 1936), *Supra*, ch. V., note 46.

c10.s17.10

For the period of three hundred years (c. B.C. 600-300) from Bimbisāra to Chandragupta Maurya Indian literature possesses hardly any dated texts in Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit, if it has them at all for any period. One does not know for certain the dates of the texts in the form in which they are available today. It is interesting to observe that almost every one of these texts is known in so many words to be a "compilation" and has made it a point to mention the "old masters," the *pūrvāchāryas*, previous authors or compilers. Whatever, then, be the dates of the last redaction, compilation or abridgment one can presume quite a high antiquity for the substantial portion of the material contained therein. That the milieu of Śākya and the Śākyans as well as of Mahāvīra and the Jainas was pluralistic in cultural institutions and movements acquires, therefore, special significance in the complicated questions of literary chronology. We understand that many of the “old masters” of the professors of *dharma*, *artha* and *kāma śāstras* were the contemporaries, colleagues, critics and rivals of Śākya and Mahāvīra. The synchronism and parallel growth of the *trivarga* literary complex with the earliest Śākyan-Jaina propaganda and Upaniṣadic (Vedic) atmosphere may be presumed as a matter of course. In so far as the Śākya-Mahāvīra activities are known to belong to the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. the critical student of comparative literary history will not be off the mark, should he attempt to place some of the earlier strands, chapters, and verses of the available texts on *Dharmaśāstra*, *Arthaśāstra* and *Kāmaśāstra* in the sixth century B.C. i.e., the very age when Śākya and Mahāvīra were living. In every instance when it is necessary to indicate a somewhat later date for any such undated texts whether in Sanskrit, Pali or Prakrit it will be necessary to adduce incontestable and positive evidences. Each and every text will have to be appraised for chronological purposes on its own merits. Altogether, Indian literary tradition enables us to feel that the Hindu mind was not dominated by any particular “ism”. The prevalence of conflicting tendencies served to endow social life and thought with a diversified pluralism as well as freedom of movement.

Linked texts (3)