The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s1.38

c15.s1.38

So far as the systems of truth and movement of discoveries and inventions are concerned, Sorokin's *Social and Culture Dynamics*¹³ makes a distinction between the "truth of faith" and the "sensate truth." "Great discoveries in mathematics, astronomy, and other natural sciences," we are told, "were made in India but they were probably made in the periods of the relative weakening of truth of faith or by partisans of the truth of reason and senses. Even so, the discoveries cannot even remotely compete with those of the Western world for the last four centuries." Sorokin does not specify the discoveries of the Hindus. But the student of the scientific contributions of Hindu culture is aware that these can be proven to have been growing for ages since the Vedic, nay, as we should now say, the Mohenjo Daro times. Indian history is generally known to be very poor in records and dates. And yet there is hardly any period which did not have its exact, natural, positive or sensate sciences. In that case, "the partisans of the truth of reason and senses" will have to be admitted as having been playing their rôle in a constant manner through the social and cultural dynamics of India. The partisans of the truth of faith, mystics, idealists and so forth were not evidently bossing the culture-world of India and crushing the sensatists out of existence all the time. Sorokin's further proposition to the effect that the "predominantly ideational mentality and system of truth of India contribute little to the increase of discoveries and inventions" is, in any case, inconsistent with his previous statement.