The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c5.s7: Survivals of Traditional Indology
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c5.s7
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Survivals of Traditional Indology
c5.s7.1
These instances of the recognition of the positive background of Hindu culture by indologists should not lead one to surmise that *orientalisme* or indology has been finally emancipated from the sway of monistic, one-sided and unscientific approaches or conclusions. Traditional Orientalism has not yet been subverted but is still quite in evidence. Works like Betty Heimann's *Studien zur Eigenart indischen Denkens* (Tübingen 1930) and Albert Schweitzer's *Die Weltanschauung der indischen Denker* (Munich 1935) are contemporary specimens of conventional indology such as was popular in the nineteenth century. These survivals are not few and far between.
c5.s7.2
Another work which, like these two, is the farthest removed from the positive data of Hindu culture is *Die indoarische Gesellschaftsordnung* (Tübingen 1935) of Alfred Geiger. At the very outset Geiger postulates a number of *Grundzüge* or fundamental principles in regard to the *indisches Volkstum* (Indian people) and its *Gesellschaftsordnung* (societal order). And just those *Quellen*, sources or authorities are *vornehmlich* (preferentially) selected by him which belong to or illustrate the "peaks of Indian history as signalized by those principles." The author's study thus becomes not an objective or historical analysis of what the *indisches Volkstum* (Indian people) factually was and has grown to be but a statement of what he considers to be the basic features of Indian civilization, and a rejection of all those facts, data or principles which do not suit his own postulates. He wants to pass off his own ideas about India as India itself and look for only those evidences from Indian literature which serve to prove his point. And this he does,—not unconsciously like many other indologists and sociologists but quite deliberately and in a planful manner with all the honesty of a scientific researcher.
c5.s7.3
In his postulates the spirit of India is not to be found in the *Sāṅkhya Kārikā* and the *Yoga-sūtra* which throw light on Indian dualism, the *Tripiṭaka* which illustrates older Buddhism, the Jaina texts, the *Mahāyāna-sūtras* of later Buddhism, the work of Rāmānuja, Madhva, and Vallabha, i.e., the opponents of Śaṅkara's Vedantism, as well as in the *Tantra* literature of Śaivism. All these sources are of importance to him only in so far as they furnish an index to the "deviations" from what he considers to be the *Geist* or spirit of India (p. 6).
c5.s7.4
"Still more worthless for our purposes" (*noch weiter zurück an Bedeutung*) have been appraised the numerous texts which lie between the tendencies and, although very objective, exhibit but mixtures, as he says. Among such works "still more worthless for our purposes" are to be found the Brāhmaṇical stories and fable-collections (*Purāṇas*, *Hitopadeśa*, *Panchatantra*) and their Buddhist counterparts (the *Jātakas*) and the political science of Kauṭalya (p. 7).
c5.s7.5
It is interesting to observe that Hillebrandt's *Altindische Politik* (Jena 1923) describes Indian social, civic, and political life just on the strength of those authorities which have been rejected by Geiger as "*noch weiter zurück an Bedeutung für unsere Zwecke.*" Naturally, therefore, Geiger has not been able to rise up to the "new indology" which was accepted and promoted, among others, by Hillebrandt. Not less interesting is the fact that Hillebrandt's work was published in the *Herdflamme* Series edited by the Austrian sociologist, Othmar Spann, the same scholar, whose general views have played an important rôle in the thesis of Geiger. Needless to observe that the methodology of Geiger, as manifest in his selections and rejections,—is the very butt of scientific and philosophical criticism as furnished by the *Positive Background of Hindu Sociology* and the *Futurism of Young Asia*.