The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c15.s2.8

c15.s2.8

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.