The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c5.s4.10

c5.s4.10

The functions of the school as a testing, selective and distributive agency were as prominent in India and China as in the modern Eur-American societies. Incidentally, it is interesting to observe that according to Sorokin the Brāhmaṇas constituted the most "powerful aristocracy of biological and social selection." In order to pass successfully the test of the Hindu educational institutions the students had to display not only an ability to learn the Vedas but "extraordinary moral and social qualities." "Only men with an extraordinary will power and spirit", says he, "could meet such a test" (pp. 191-192, 194-195, 210, 545-546).