The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c3.2

c3.2

*The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology* by Professor Benoy Kumar Sarkar, of which Book I. of the second edition is being presented in this publication, has had an interesting origin and development. It was in 1910 while my father, the late Major Baman Das Basu, M.R.C.S. (London), I.M.S. (Retd.) was preparing his manuscript for the *Indian Medicinal Plants* (first edition, 1918, second edition, 1936) and organizing the Botanical Court of the All-India Industrial Exhibition at Allahabad that he came into contact with Professor Sarkar of the Bengal National College, Calcutta (National Council of Education, Bengal, est. 1906), as one of the visitors. Prof. Sarkar was then connected, as founder and organizer, also with the *Māldaha Jātīya Śikṣā Samiti* (District Council of National Education, Malda, Bengal, est. 1907) which used to run eleven primary and secondary schools in different parts of the district, at times with over one thousand boys and girls on the rolls. My father entrusted Prof. Sarkar with the translation into English of the Sanskrit work on politics, economics and sociology, entitled *Śukranīti* for the *Sacred Books of the Hindus* Series edited by himself for the Panini Office, which had been established in November 1891 by my uncle, the late Rai Bahadur Sris Chandra Basu Vidyarnava.¹ *The Positive Background* is Professor Sarkar's Introduction to his English translation of Śukrāchārya's *Nītisāra*, as *Śukranīti* is sometimes popularly known.