The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s2.39

c15.s2.39

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.