The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c5.s6.1

c5.s6.1

The "new indology" is in evidence to a certain extent in French scholarship also. *L'Inde Antique et la Civilisation Indienne* (Paris 1933) is the work of several authors headed by Paul Masson-Oursel, who contributes nearly half the material. The general editor, Henri Berr, embodies the new spirit when he declares in the *avant-propos* that Indian character has been defined in a very incomplete manner (*d'une façon très incomplète*). "The great mass of the peoples of India," says he, "is represented as plunged in dream or mystical contemplation, as lost in the hope and anticipation of *nirvāṇa*. People exaggerate their detachment from the worldly reality (*On exagère leur détachement de la realité terrestre*)." He suggests that it is necessary to distinguish the milieux and the epochs of such phenomenon (p. xii).