The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s9.t3.12

c14.s9.t3.12

The political and social *mores* of the times are condemned by Vaiśampāyana as being very deplorable (chapter I, pp. 12, 15). *Dharmanyāya-vyavasthāyām kāraṇam valamerva hi.* Might alone is being treated as right in matters of duty and law, he complains. Wearing the sacred thread has become the sole claim to Brāhmanhood. The author notices some new phenomena in social life with the object, of course, of condemning them. Thus he refers to *lāvanye keśadhāraṇam* (i.e., keeping hair on the head for the sake of beauty). Apparently, he is an upholder of the old practice of wholesale shaving. Then, again, he notices that something like free love has become popular, for he condemns the practice of *svīkāra eva chodvāhe* (i.e. marriage as being accomplished only by the fact of taking a woman).