The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c13.s3.t1.10

c13.s3.t1.10

In Chapter VI. 10-12 Brihaspati announces *dhanamūlam jagat* (the world has its roots in wealth) and *sarvāṇi tatra santi* (everything is to be found there). Further, we are told that the man without wealth is as it were dead, a *Chaṇḍāla* (pariah).. In these messages an indologist might be tempted to suspect the germ of the Marxist "economic interpretation of history." But Brihaspati is not a monist. He makes his position clear in the very next *sūtra* (13) which says that "in the same manner (*evam*) one should acquire learning which is the root of *dharma* (*dharmamūlām cha vidyām arjayet*). He does not stop at this point, however, but promulgates *vidyāmūlam jagat* (the world has its roots in *vidyā*) as well as *vidyā punah sarvam*, i.e. knowledge again is all (15).