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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s2: The Geometry of "Between-Men" Relations in the Dharma and Artha Śāstras

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s2

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The Geometry of "Between-Men" Relations in the Dharma and Artha Śāstras

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Coming now towards the end of the present survey we have to observe that the specialized treatises or *śāstras*¹ on politics, economics and sociology in Hindu literature are numerous. To be very brief, they are to be encountered, generally speaking, under two groups: (1) *dharma* (and *smriti*) *śāstras* and (2) *artha* (and *nīti*) *śāstras*. As a full-fledged treatise, the oldest *dharmaśāstra* is perhaps the *Dharmasūtra* of Gautama (c 550 B.C. ?), and the oldest *arthaśāstra* perhaps that associated with the name of Kauṭalya (c 330 B.C. ?). Excluding the vernacular and English paraphrases or translations of the old Sanskrit treatises in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the last *smritiśāstra* of the Hindu tradition is perhaps the commentary on Vijnāneśvara's *Mitākṣarā* by the Maratha jurist Bālambhaṭṭa (1740-1830 ?) or the Bengali jurist Jagannātha Tarkapanchānana's (1695-1806 ?) *Vivāda-bhangārṇava*. And in the line of *nītiśāstras* the last work is perhaps the *Rājanīti*² in Marathi language (c 1810) based on Sanskrit texts by the Maratha scholar Malhār Rām Rāo Chitnis.

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¹ P. V. Kane: *History of Dharmaśāstras* (Poona) Vol. I. (1931) J. J. Meyer: *Ueber das Wesen der altindischen Rechtsschriften und ihr Verhältnis zu einander und zu Kauṭilya* (Leipzig 1927). See also *supra*, pp. 354-361 (Kauṭalya and His Boswell).

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² Edited by K. N. Sane for the *Kāvyetihāsa Samgraha Series* No. 23, (Poona, 1887).

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We have to face here a lilterature which has a more or less continuous history of nearly two thousand five hundred years. And this literature from beginning to end is essentially "analytical" in its contents. The Hindu speculations have given rise to a number of categories and we find that the philosophers are engaged in defining and analysing them. The topic may be constitutional, legal, economic, financial, social or international. But we notice that in the treatment by these authors one is led to feel that society, polity or economy is nothing but a system of relationships, contacts, *liaisons*, attitudes, dealings, *rapports*, *Beziehungen*. In the Hindu philosophy of *dharma*, *smriti*, *artha* or *nīti* mankind is presented in the form of an individual *vis-à-vis* individuals or groups, or of groups *vis-à-vis* groups or individuals. The stuff is essentially interhuman.

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Some of these attitudes, relations or contacts are described under the complex of *saptāmga*, the seven-limbed organism (*Kauṭaliya* VI. i, VIII, I, Viṣṇu III, 33, Śukra, I, lines 121-124, V, 1-2, Kāmandaka, 1, 16, IV, 1). Here we are presented with the theory of the constitution involving as it does the analysis of the *svāmī* (ruler), the *amātya* (minister or councillor), the *suhrit* (ally), the *koṣa* (treasure), the *rāṣṭra* (territory), the *durga* (fort) and the *vala* (army). The analysis of these seven categories is not the only topic of Hindu philosophy in political science. Then there are the problems, among others, of *aiśvarya* (sovereignty) which have also demanded the attention of the theorists. And here we encounter the Hindu theory of the state. In this analysis, likewise, the authors have given currency to a number of characteristic categories.

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The state (*rājya*) as an entity is grounded in the phenomenon of *aiśvarya* or *svāmitva*, i.e., sovereignty. The theory of the state, therefore, is fundamentally the philosophy of sovereignty. It may be exercised by the one or the few or the many. It may be vested in the long run in the legislature or the executive or the judiciary. It may be identical with the despotism of custom or the rule of positive law. It may manifest itself in and through a single organ as the *primum mobile* embracing all organized spheres or exhibited simultaneously in several co-existent co-ordinate corporations of the pluralistic universe. And finally, it may happen to be the monopoly of the bourgeoisie or of the proletariat. In any case, it is *aiśvarya* that ushers into being the phenomena called politics in societal existence. In political speculation the central problem obviously is the analysis of the great *śakti* (force) that constitutes the core of "political" relations, i.e., the *élan* of *samūha* (organized or collective) life.

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"What is sovereignty?" is then the moot question to be attacked by all political philosophers. The problem was grasped by the *dharma* (*smriti*) and *artha* (*nīti*) theorists of India also. It is to be remembered, however, that we are here concerned with the thought which prevailed in the world ages before the ideas discussed in Preuss's *Gemeinde, Staat und Reich als Gebietskörperschaften* (1889), Leory-Beaulieu's *L'Etat moderne et ses fonctions* (1890), Novicow's *Les Luttes entre sociétés humaines et leurs phases successives* (1893), Lecky's *Democracy and Liberty* (1896), Michel's *L'Idée de l'Etat* (1898), Merriam's *History of the Theory of Sovereignty since Rousseau* (1900), Scherger's *Evolution of Modern Liberty* (1904), Joseph-Barthélemy's *Rôle du pouvoir executif dans les républiques modernes* (1906), Duguit's *Le Droit social, le droit individuel et la transformation de l'état* (1908), Hobhouse's *Social Evolution and Political Theory* (1911), Barker's *Political Thought in England from Spencer to the Present Day* (1914), Lenin's *State and Revolution* (1917), Laski's *Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty* (1918), Joseph- Barthélemy's *Problème de la Compétence dans la démocratie* (1918), Watson's *State in Peace and War* (1919), Spann's *Der wahre Staat* (1921), Dewey's *Human Nature and Conduct* (1922), Van den Bruck: *Das dritte Reich* (1923), Hitler's *Mein Kampf* (1924), Sorokin's *Sociology of Revolution* (1925), Meinecke's *Idee der Staatsräson* (1925), Hocking's *Man and the State* (1926) and *The Spirit of World Politics* (1932), Redanò's *Le Stato Etico* (1927), Masaryk's *Making of a State* (1927), Karl Haushofer's *Geopolitik der Pan-Ideen* (1931) and *Raumüberwindende Mächte* (1934), Bouglé's *Socialismes Français* (1933), Köllreutter's *Grundriss der Allgemeinen Staatslehre* (1933), Lasbax's *La France ira-t-elle à un Troisième Empire?* (1934) and Del Vecchio's *Saggi Intorno allo Stato* (1935). The development of political philosophy in the world since the American war of independence and the first industrial revolution should as a rule be left out of the consideration while examining the categories of thought created by the Indian philosophers from Gautama and Kauṭalya to Jagannātha and Chitnis.

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The "analytical" treatment of political phenomena, bearing on the constitution or on sovereignty, is a prominent feature of Hindu thinking. The conviction is forced upon us under the guidance of the *dharma*-and the *artha-śāstras* that man in politics is fundamentally a bundle or complex of social or "between-men", i.e., interhuman relationships. These treatises do not seem to be interested in this or that particular state. Neither the Maurya Empire nor the Chola Empire nor indeed any state of Hindu history has engaged their attention. Their topic for discussion is the state *überhaupt*, i.e., the state as "the thing in itself," so to say. Be it observed that we are not attaching to this phrase any metaphysical implications. No treatment can be more objective, concrete and human than what we find in these works. To these authors a state is a human collectivity and therefore is nothing but a system of relations and orientations. Altogether, we are presented by the Hindu philosophers with the very pattern, form, geometry, so to say, of human relations. Whatever be the content of the state, howsoever varied be the races that constitute its membership, wheresoever located it be, the relations between the members of the state are taken as eternal. Examined in this light, the creations of the Hindu philosophers in and through the *dharma* and *artha śāstras* would appear to be fine logical contributions to what is being described as "pure," "analytical" or "formal" sociology in contemporary Eur-America.

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This kind of sociology is called by Leopold von Wiese,³ the leading exponent, as *die Lehre von den sozialen Beziehungen und den sozialen Gebilden*, i.e., the science of social relations or processes (competition, co-operation, exploitation etc.) and social "forms" (such as the group, mass, state, people, nation, class etc.). It is sometimes shortly named the *Beziehungslehre* or science of relations. And the special feature of this science of relations consists in the fact that it deals not with historical or time-conditioned categories but with the categories such as are "above" or indifferent to time (*überzeitlich*) and somewhat eternal (*quasiewig*). These categories relate to such relations or processes of "to" and "away" from (*Zu-und Auseinander*) as prevailed, are prevailing and will prevail as long as there are human beings.

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³ *Soziologie* (Berlin 1931) pp. 34, 47, 117, 120-124, 131-133.

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The formal sociology of the state cannot afford to remain a mere history of the state, as says von Wiese in his *System der Allgemeinen Soziologie*.⁴ Its function consists in "abstracting," scratching out (*herauslösung*) or isolating the "between-men" elements (*Zwischenmenschlichen*) out of the historico-empirical raw material. The items such as happen by accident to be the features of contemporary states, for instance, of the German state cannot according to him constitute its subject matter. In formal sociology are to be discussed the striking repetitions, similarities and rhythms etc. of all statal happenings or historical states. Its object is to analyze the common factors in all these social processes. And this is what has been done, along, of course, with other things, by the authors of the *dharma* and the *artha* or the *nīti śāstras*.

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⁴ Munich, 1933, p. 537.

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The social processes which specifically or peculiarly belong to the statal complex are characterized by von Wiese as consisting in *Herrschaft* (rule or domination) and *Dienst* (obedience or service).⁵ The relations between the superiors and the subordinates, the command, the nomination, the delegation, the status of officials, the protocol, the notification, the statute, the titles and so forth constitute the paraphernalia of statal relations. Among the numerous symbols of the state are noted the throne, the flag, the coat of arms, the uniforms, arms, office-buildings, the navy, the court of justice, and so on.

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⁵ *Ibid.*, pp. 548, 552.

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The contents⁶ of Somadeva's *Nītivākyāmrita*, Bhoja's *Yuktiḳalpataru*, Hemachandra's *Laghu Arhannīti*, Someśvara's *Mānasollāsa*, Chaṇḍeśvara's *Rājanīti-Ratnākara*, Vaiśampāyana's *Nītiprakāśikā*, Nīlakaṇṭha's *Nītimayūkha*, Mitra-Miśra's *Rājanīti-prakāśa* and Malhār Rām Rāo Chitnis's *Rājanīti* may be cited as instances of the "formal" analysis of the state-complex.

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⁶ *Supra*, pp. 422, 427-29, 431, 433-434, 516-518, 525, 546-548, 551-554.

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"Formal" or "analytical" sociology is claimed by von Wiese to be new and very recent. To a considerable extent the claim is well founded. Starting as analytical sociology did with Tönnies's *Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft* in 1887 it did not assume a definite form until the publication of Simmel's *Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung* (Sociology: Researches into the Forms of Society-making) in 1908. But in the present author's treatment the entire Hindu literature of *dharma*, *smriti*, *artha* and *nīti śāstras* is rich in the analysis of social forms and social relationships or processes and deals essentially with the between-men relations. In other words, the "new sociology" must have to be regarded, methodologically and in its rudimentary elements, at any rate, as very old, at least as old as Gautama and Kauṭalya, nay, much older still, because even Gautama and Kauṭalya had their predecessors in the establishment of the same geometry of social relations. And here it should be reasonable to agree with Sorokin⁷ who holds that its "founders were all law-givers who formulated the first rules of social relations, and especially all jurisconsults and theorizers of law." It should be admitted, however, at the outset that the analytical or formal discussions in the societal philosophies of the ancients and medievals of Eur-Asia cannot by any means be compared with the selfconscious and deliberate attempts at the promulgation of a new scientific discipline as represented by the Tönnies-Simmel-von Wiese group.

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⁷ *Contemporary Sociological Theories* (New York 1928) pp. 495-498.

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It will be noticed that, from the standpoint of content or substance, most of the categories of Hindu political philosophy have analogues in those of European and that it may be reasonable to connect even modern and contemporary theories with the findings of the old Hindus. In so far as political and social phenomena, or for that matter, all mental and moral or human phenomena are universal and eternal, it is possible to detect Platonic, Aristotelian, Patristic or Macchiavellian strands even in the philosophical discussions of contemporary problems. Besides, some of the economic and social institutions of today can be traced back to the Middle Ages for their crude and even semi-developed beginnings. It is from this angle of vision that we can appreciate the attempts of Sorokin's *Contemporary Sociological Theories* to trace virtually every "ism" of today back not only to medieval literary documents but to the most primitive records of human thought.

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But in a strictly scientific way of looking at things the theories that have grown around democracy and socialism, technocracy and world-economy, *le marché mondial*, constitutional liberty and class-struggle are essentially the products of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,—the epochs of the first and the second industrial revolutions. These phenomena were unknown as facts of "large dimensions" in the previous epochs.⁸ It would be psychologically untenable, therefore, to bring in the philosophies of Europe from, say, Plato's *Republic* to Frederick the Great's *Anti-Machiavel* (1736) and *Das Politische Testament* (1768) into the atmosphere of present-day ideologies. For instance, in so far as a "modern" thinker like Hobbes or Bossuet and a still more modern thinker like Hegel was unused to the grammar of trade unions, syndicates, class-struggle, international proletariat and so forth, the "absolutism" or monistic idealism that is associated with their political theories can hardly be invoked to interpret what may be described as the "neo-absolutism"⁹ of today, namely, that prevalent among the thinkers of Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. One must by no means overlook the very important consideration that it is on the generation-long experience of parliamentary liberties, labour organization, democratic procedure, and international camaraderies that the professedly anti-parliamentary, anti-democratic, anti-socialistic systems of neo-capitalistic *Duce*-states or *Führerstaaten*, i.e., leader-polities and dictatorships have been reared.

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⁸ On the question of modernistic economy in medieval Europe see H. Hauser: *Les Origines Historiques des Problèmes Economiques Actuels* (Paris 1930) pp. 3-9, *Les Débuts du Capitalisme* (Paris 1931), 16, 31, 42.

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⁹ B. K. Sarkar: "The People and the State in Neo-Democracy" (*Calcutta Review*, July, 1936).

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In Lasbax's *La France ira-t-elle à un Troisième Empire*¹⁰ we find an interesting analysis of imperialism. This is another political category, which, apparently unchanging, in reality embodies substantially diverse contents in different epochs. Imperialism may be taken as an eternal fact. But ancient imperialism was "single and universal", says he, whereas modern imperialism is *imperium dissocié en individualités nationales*, the imperialism of individual nations, i.e., neither single nor universal. The imperialism of the future is expected by Lasbax to bring back the "primitive unity" but in "a regime of the federation of all the peoples." It will be the "supreme imperialism of total peace."

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¹⁰ Paris, 1934, p. 251.

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When one is adequately oriented to the diversities between the old and the new regimes in the institutional and other factual experiences of economic and social life one should be careful in establishing equations of the ancient and mediaeval Hindu categories (as of the ancient and mediaeval European) with those prevailing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Naturally, therefore, the question of the Hindus (or of the Europeans) of yore as having "anticipated" the moderns ought hardly to be raised in strictly scientific discussions. For comparative politics we are likely to be within reasonable limits if we read the *dharma* and the *artha śāstras* in the main as embodying the ideologies of European thought down to the beginnings of the industrial revolution.

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*The Variables and Constants in Hindu Positivism*

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We have made a bibliographical survey, so to say, of the leading literary documents chiefly in Sanskrit and to a certain extent also in the Indian vernaculars,—with a view to exhibit the positivistic, "sensate," secular and humane ideologies of the Hindus from the earliest times down to Rammohun. It has been our chief concern to focus the attention on the treatises of politics or the political sections of social encyclopædias. The treatment is by no means exhaustive. But we must not forget that all this survey has a particular aim, namely, that of furnishing us with hints as to the place-value and time-value, i.e., the *locale* and the age of the *Śukranīti*, the treatise in whose fortunes we are directly interested for the time being.

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There are, no doubt, some floating ideas which are common to almost all these treatises and seem to have been the stock-in-trade of every writer on *nīti* or *artha*. The *verbatim* reproductions or occasional modifications and adaptations of the same texts are not difficult to explain. Uniformity was a fact of societal existence. It was promoted in a variety of ways. In the first place, social mobility, both horizontal and vertical, was the basic reality of Indian as of European interhuman relations. The language of the learned world, again, was the same throughout India. Education was imparted orally, and ideas were transmitted for generations from mouth to mouth. Besides, the incessant political changes of the times also promoted a uniformity of culture. Dynastic revolutions, territorial expansions and contractions, transfers of royal seats from place to place, emergence of new areas into political importance, constant transformations of the "old order yielding place to new"—all these tended to produce a remarkable elasticity and flexibility of the Indian mind. It was ever ready therefore to receive new impressions as created by social metabolism due to *rapprochement* and intercourse among peoples.

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And here it is possible to adduce facts from extra-Indian culture-zones also. It is interesting that Meinecke in his *Idee der Staatsräson*¹¹ should come to the conclusion that during nearly two thousand years certain leading thinkers were expressing essentially the same ideas. "Cicero, Aquinas and Frederick the Great would have understood one another," says he, "because all three spoke the easily comprehensible language of natural law." The entire work is, besides, a testimony to the profound ideological reality that from Machiavelli to Treitschke European political philosophy has traded in two fundamental categories. One has reference to *Staatsräson*, which we may call *śaktiyoga*, i.e., *Machtpolitik*, the doctrine of power or force, and *daṇḍa* (punishment, sanction 'etc.). The other points to *Sittlichkeit* (morality), *Rechtlichkeit* (law), corresponding to the Hindu doctrine of *dharma*, i.e., law, justice, etc. It is the permutation and combination of these two eternal polarities, marked often by the emphasis on one to the exclusion of the other that constitutes virtually the entire encyclopædia of political philosophy as exhibited in this work. This is a very instructive and eminently acceptable generalization. We understand that changes in space and time do not after all invariably engender profound variations in the theories of the state, law, diplomacy, societal organization etc. In social affairs, statics is no less profound than dynamics.

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¹¹ Munich, 1925, p. 452.

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The existence of social "constants" can be borne out in other fields, for instance, in the domain of law. The Italian scholar, Giorgio del Vecchio,¹² invites our attention to the fact that the organism of law became enriched through new inventions such as the printing press. New institutions were created by the press. But the preceding structure of law remained entire, and no new laws were expressly formulated. Similarly in our times, says he, new branches of law have been created on account of numerous transformations of living conditions and modes of activity. But the main trunk remains substantially unchanged. The structure has been amplified and perfected but its fundamental unity is to be found intact.

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¹² "The Crisis of the Science of Law" in the *Tulane Law Review* (New Orleans 1934) p. 331.

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This problem of "constants" in social progress can be referred to certain universal considerations. However undeniable and incontestable be the objective signs of amelioration or progress enjoyed by a society, the individual men and women cannot see or feel in them any gounds for feeling happy. It is this paradox of civilisation to which Alfredo Niceforo is led as a result of his investigations *sull' importanza dello studio della distribuzione dei caratteri mentali* (on the importance of studying the distribution of mental characters, Catania, 1933).

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An explanation of the impossibility of feeling happy is found by Niceforo in the circumstance that two distinct elements are to be discovered in the social facts, one of which is superficial and variable and the other profound and invariable. The external part is variable. But the part which does not change is internal and is the fundamental element. These are the *résidus sociaux*, the social residues, or *résidus constants*, the constant, permanent residues, and they remain always hidden under all apparent variations of forms. The ideas of equality, liberty etc., the optimistic and humanitarian ideologies, the conceptions of altruism and so forth are considered by Niceforo to be the external and variable elements of social facts. But they are misleading because it is under them that is hidden the desire to dominate on the part of the minorities, i.e., of the most qualified or the fit. And this desire for domination constitutes the profound and secret motive of all action in social groups.¹³

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¹³ A. Niceforo: *Les Indices numériques de la civilisation et du progrès* (Paris 1921) pp. 201-205.

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While it is possible to discover the constants in every culture-zone, Indian and extra-Indian, and explain them also to a certain extent on the basis of "social residues" the fact of the variables must not be minimised or overlooked. For instance, beneath or above these unities and uniformities of Hindu culture are to be found the varieties and diversities which are the characteristic products of particular epochs and areas. A close study of the political maxims embodied in the various branches of Hindu literature is calculated to yield not only a history of the development of polity and political speculation in India through the ages, but also a record of the varying geographical or regional and racial influences bearing upon it.

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This dualistic characteristic of Indian national culture in its socio-political aspects, viz., the super-imposition, upon a fundamental bed-rock of uniformity, of a diversity adjusted to the conditions of varying localities and races—has been also pointed out in my work on a socio-religious festival called *gambhīrā* connected with the Śaiva-cum-Śāktaism of Bengal.¹⁴ In fact, the diversity that characterises the customs and festivals, hymns and rituals of the people in different parts of India in the self-same socio-religious institution is so great to-day that it is often difficult to perceive the unity underlying them.

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¹⁴ B. K. Sarkar: *The Folk Element in Hindu Culture* (London 1917), pp. 23-26.

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The relativity and diversity of ideals and institutions modifying the traditional unifying agencies can be explained in much the same manner as their uniformity and unity. The kaleidoscopic political changes which shifted the vital centres of gravity from people to people,—province to province, and district to district,—necessarily converted the border-lands or buffer-states of one epoch into prominent seats of political and cultural life in the next, and occasionally diverted the stream of paramount ideas along new and untrodden channels. The variables were thus engendered on account of military dynamics. These are hardly visible to us today because of the paucity of historical details bearing on the "social metabolism" of by-gone times. In other words, social mobility which has been taken to be a factor in the promotion of uniformity was likewise an agency in the introduction of diversity. On the other hand, the translation of higher culture into the tongues of the people of the various regions from the common storehouse of Sanskrit, the *lingua franca* of educated India, through the ages, and the necessary modifications or adaptations, have imparted a local colouring and distinctive tone to the all-India Hindu traditions, sentiments and customs in the several parts of the country.

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Besides, it would be wrong to believe that the social and religious life of the people of India has been for ages governed exclusively by the texts of the *śāstras* in Sanskrit (which, *en passant*, could not escape the natural adaptation to the conditions of time and place). Indian society and culture have also really and to a powerful extent been influenced and directed by the vast mass of the different vernacular literatures, both secular and religious, that grew up side by side with, and eventually replaced, to a considerable extent, the Sanskritic storehouse.

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So far as the Hindu literature on economics, public finance, constitution, jurisprudence, social order, and international law is concerned, the proper analysis of the documents with the object of discriminating from the permanent and basic foundations of unifying thought and tradition the layers and sediments that point to different epochs and diverse local or racial conditions in Indian culture-history, has yet to be undertaken in an intensive manner. That would be tantamount to an analysis of the "variables" *vis-à-vis* the "constants" in Hindu positivism.

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And the problem of assigning a particular sociopolitical treatise to a particular kingdom or empire cannot be solved before a vast amount of spade-work is done. In the first place, the political history of India has to be ransacked so as to give more or less complete pictures of the administrative machinery and economic organisation of the various kingdoms and empires of the Hindu world.

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In the second place, the whole field of Indian literature,—Sanskrit, Prakrit and vernacular as well as Persian for the later periods,—has to be ransacked wide and deep to discover socio-political and socio-economic treatises, and their contents minutely analysed and elaborately indexed in the interest of comparative studies.

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Much has already been accomplished along both these lines, as would have been apparent from the foregoing survey as well as from the footnotes referring to Indian and non-Indian publications. But intensive investigations remain yet to be undertaken on a large scale.

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The present work,—*The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology*,—is an attempt at placing some of the data of socio-economic and socio-political life gleaned from Śukrāchārya's text-book of politics, economics and sociology before the investigators into the world's political, economic and sociological thought.

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