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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s3: The Problem of Variations in Hindu Polity

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s3

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The Problem of Variations in Hindu Polity

c11.s3.1

Breloer’s position in this regard should appear to be anything but scientific. According to him the way through the *Arthaśāstra* leads direct into the actual life of India, and that life is alleged to be evident even today as it was in Buddha’s time and earlier. This postulate of unchanging India is modified by him in so far as he admits the existence of changing conditions and concedes that the number of “constant factors” is equal to that of the unknown or changing ones. But in any case, “the variations", says he, "which the Indian system has undoubtedly experienced fully disappear behind the institutions which have survived the changes of times until today and will survive further in future.¹⁸

c11.s3.2

¹⁸ Vol. III, pp. 3, 15.

c11.s3.3

The topic of "constant factors" and "stability" may be left out of consideration for the present. But in so far as "variations" are believed to be in evidence in Indian political institutions and in so far as according to his estimate fifty per cent should appear to be the proportion of these variations one should naturally expect an analysis of the "modifying" conditions, the new circumstances, the forces leading to "social mobility" etc., such as from time to time were responsible for these differentiations. Thus considered, Kauṭalya's date, *locale* and *milieu* are quite important in every scientific study of Hindu politics. It is the "relativity" of Kauṭalya to the region or state and period of culture that possesses very deep significance in a genuine understanding of the Hindu culture-developments. Otherwise one is landed on the absurd proposition that the world of the *Atharva Veda* is identical with that of the *Mahāvagga* as well as with that of the *Mahābhārata*, or perhaps that Hitler's Germany is the same as Bismarck's because to both of them the cult of the Fatherland and the doctrine of *Kulturstaat* are as life-blood, nay, that Mussolini does not differ from Stalin and neither from Hitler because all three are believers in the "totalitarian state" as well as "economic planning." It should appear that Breloer has rather too lightly dealt with the problems of chronology, personality and the surroundings of Kauṭalya—by considering them to be less "anziehend" (attractive) and *hinter der Bedeutung dieser Feststellung der Vollständigkeit weit zurück* (far behind the question of the integral or comprehensive character of the work in importance).¹⁹

c11.s3.4

¹⁹ Vol. III, p. 2.

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