The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c5.s4.24

c5.s4.24

An exponent of this new indology in Germany is Alfred Hillebrandt who in his *Altindische Politik* (Jena 1923, pp. 1-2) commences his study with a criticism of the old indology almost in the manner of the *Positive Background*. "One who takes only the religious and philosophical literture of ancient intellectual life", says Hillebrandt, "will tend to the belief that it was exclusively given over to the eternal and transcendental questions and considered the things of this world as but nothing. The majority of modern writings, even of those which are directly based on the original sources, devoted as they are to the object of understanding the theory of the oneness of the *Vedānta* or the *Nirvāṇa* of Buddhism have created the impression as if the sages of India lived only on one thought, namely, as to how to escape the series of births and pains and to fly the actual world."