The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s1.32

c15.s1.32

The impact of traditional indology on Sorokin's *Social and Cultural Dynasties*¹¹ is indeed very strongly manifest in his ideas about social and political relations. Bouglé's *Note sur le droit et la caste en Inde* published in *L'Année Sociologique* (Paris) of 1906 has been accepted by Sorokin as the key to his interpretations of Hindu polity. According to Bouglé, as Sorokin cites, "*une organisation proprement politique n'a pas été donnée la société hindoue*" (a properly political organisation was not given to the Hindu society). Other statements of Bouglé are quoted by Sorokin with approval, for instance, the following: "In India there is no embryo of the state. The very idea of the state public power is entirely foreign to India." On the strength of this kind of indology Sorokin has delivered a sociology like the following about the Hindu states. "These states," says he, "were either theocratic or mostly organized by foreign invaders."