The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s9.t7.18

c14.s9.t7.18

Certain interesting items call for notice, however, at this stage of Hindu evolution in positivism. By the middle or rather end of the seventeenth century Hindu political philosophy embarks upon a career of profound enrichment, renovation, and remaking. For the first time in the history of Hindu India it is possible to encounter certain entirely new categories. For the first time do we find ourselves in an atmosphere in which the political theorist does not think in terms of the *saptāmga* (seven-limbed organism) at all. And it is curious that this remaking of Hindu political theory is consummated by one who is not a professional *artha* or *nīti* writer. The man who without being a professor of an *Artha*, *Smriti* or *Nīti* Academy yet succeeds in imparting to *artha* and *nīti śāstras* an epochmaking form and spirit is Rāmdās. The most intensely original of Hindu political philosophers and the profoundest remaker of Hindu political theory—second perhaps to none but Kauṭalya, the *avatāra* of political science,—be it repeated, did not write anything on politics. His great work, *Dāsabodha*, is a wonderful treatise on universal morality of the most non-political character. Excepting a few stray references to *rāya karaṇa* (king's functions) there is nothing political in this book. And yet this is the man to whom India owes the rebirth of her political science, the transformation of her *arthaśāstra*.