The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s1.2

c15.s1.2

In the field of indology, however, scholars both Indian and non-Indian, have up till now as a rule fought shy of economics, politics, law, or sociology in their studies relating to the history of Hindu philosophy. Works dealing with the ideas of ancient or medieval Indian thinkers on body, mind, soul, universe, reasoning, intuition, meditation etc. have been systematically practising non-co-operation with the Hindu ideas of property, state, society and law, as well as of fine arts, crafts, industries and so forth such as form the subject matter of *vārttā*, *śilpa* and *vāstu śāstras*. The absence of the comprehensive treatment of Hindu philosophy is one of the main reasons for one-sided and therefore fallacious and misleading interpretation of the Hindu mind and its creations. No survey of Hindu civilization or culture-history can be adequate which ignores or is indifferent to the achievements of the Indian people in political, economic and social institutions as well as political, economic and social thought.¹ Those modern treatises dealing with Hindu philosophy which have bestowed attention on, say, *mokṣa* (salvation) to the exclusion of the other three categories in the philosophical *chaturvarga* (*quadrivium*) of *puruṣārtha* (the desirables of man), namely, *dharma* (law, duty, *mores*), *artha* (economico-political interests), and *kāma* (sex-life) can but furnish partial, to say the least, unjust and erroneous pictures about Hindu thought and institutions.