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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s8.t2: The Positivism of the Dāsabodha

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s8.t2

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The Positivism of the Dāsabodha

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The *Dāsabodha* by Rāmdās (1608-1681) is a work in 20 books. Each book is furnished with 10 sections, and is therefore called a *daśaka*. The sections are called *samāsas*. So there are altogether 200 *samāsas* in the entire treatise, each of which is furnished with a colophon. The *samāsas* are of diverse sizes. The *Dāsabodha* is described in every colophon as *Guruśiṣya-sambāda* (conversation between the master and the disciple). It is, however, throughout composed in the form of the master's sayings rather than in that of questions and answers.

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The sayings⁵ in these 200 *samāsas* deal with such topics as *bhakti* (faith), *rajoguṇa* (activism), *tamoguṇa* (inertness), *dukkha* (pain), *mrityu* (death), *Brahma*, *mokṣa* (liberation), *ātmā* (self), *anātmā* (not-self), *yuga-dharma* (duties or mores of the Kali age). It is necessary to observe that of politics there is hardly anything in this treatise. There are but just a few references to *rāya-* *karaṇa* (king's functions) in this work, voluminous as it is. Its make-up is non-political.

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⁵ L. R. Pangarkar : *Sārtha Śrīdāsabodha* (Poona 1923).

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The work is mainly made up of ideas relating to man as an animal and as a person. The verses are terse and epigrammatic and simple enough to pass from mouth to mouth becoming thereby the household words of the masses. Although the gods are mentioned once in a while the *Dāsabodha* is not a treatise of god-lore. It is principally a work of psychology and morals, such as we get from the genuine saints and *sādhus* even of today. Its teachings are calculated to have a sober influence on the mind and character of individuals. As such its spiritual significance is considerable. Like the Sanskrit *Gītā* and the Tamil *Kurāl* the *Dāsbodha* is one of the greatest classics of world-literature. Not less important as a moral and spiritual force than the *Rāmāyaṇa* of Tulsīdās (1532-1624), the *Dāsabodha* of Rāmdās (1608-1681) has a special literary feature in so far as it is, unlike the former, entirely independent of a story but is a collection of precepts bearing on man's nature and goal. It was by such doses of positive philosophy that the moral atmosphere of the masses in the midst of which Śivāji had to live, move and have his being in order to organize invincible legions was impregnated. Whether Rāmdās was the guide-philosopher-friend to Śivāji is perhaps a controversial point.⁶ But that he wielded the moral dynamo with which to energize the springs of action of the folk that Śivāji was destined to serve there is no doubt. Rāmdās can by all means then be treated as a colleague of Śivāji in the self-same mission of establishing the '*dharmarājya* of the Marathas. The personal relations between Rāmdās and Śivāji are likely to be debated for some long time. Whether he had any finger in Śivāji's military plans and constructive statesmanship may always remain among the unsolved questions of Maratha “antiquities.” But as makers of Mahārāṣṭra and remakers of Hindustan Rāmdās and Śivāji will always go together as creative twins, so to say, as one ideological complex in the historical scholarship of future generations just as tradition has brought them together in a more direct and personal relationship.

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⁶ *J. N. Sarkar*: *Shivaji* (Calcutta 1929), pp. 381-382.

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