The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s2.4

c15.s2.4

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.