The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s5: Maurya India
The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c7.s5
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Maurya India
c7.s5.1
We may now commence our survey of the more well-known among the leading royal or imperial polities of the Hindus about which precise historical dates and factual details are available. The first in chronological order happens also to be the most extensive of the Hindu Empire-systems. This was the Maurya Empire¹¹ (B.C. 322-185). It embraced modern Afghanistan, the whole of Upper India, the Deccan and Southern India excluding, however, the extreme south (Chola, Pāṇḍya, Kerala, Satyaputra and Ceylon).
c7.s5.2
¹¹ D. R. Bhandarkar: *Asoka* (Calcutta 1925), R. K. Mookerji: *Asoka* (London 1927), De la Vallée Poussin: *L'Inde aux temps des Barbares, Grecs, Scythes, Parthes et Yuetchis* (Paris 1930), section on *jugements sur Asoka* pp. 114-119. S. S. Desikar: "The Mauryan Invasion of Tamilakam" in the *Indian Historical Quarterly*, Calcutta, March 1928; E. J. Rapson: *Ancient India* (Cambridge 1914) pp. 78-79, 107-108. For Poros's war of defence against Alexander and the Kautalyan battle arrays see B. Breloer: *Alexanders Kampf gegen Poros* (Stuttgart 1933), pp. 78-82, 169-172, 191-192. See also K.N.S. Pillai: *The Chronology of the Early Tamils* (c. 50 B.C.—200 A.C.), Madras 1932, pp. 192-194.
c7.s5.3
Indian spirit has been characterized by Emile Sénart as follows: "A general consideration strikes me. In the field of speculation his natural mysticism sways the Hindu spirit, the concatenation of formulæ sustains it and the intoxication of abstractions stimulates it. But in every other domain it is little creative (*en tout autre domaine il est peu créateur*)."
c7.s5.4
It is interesting to find, therefore, that De la Vallée Poussin,¹² who considers the above remarks of Sénart as worthy of meditation, has the following in connection with the Maurya administration. "The Hindu genius," says he, "which we often consider as essentially mystical and fantastic, revealed in all the fields of social, political and economic life incontestable gifts of organization.
c7.s5.5
¹² *L'Inde* (Paris 1930) pp. 72. 298.
c7.s5.6
One is struck by the sagacious measures which contribute to the convenience of commerce, which assure the security of towns against robbers and fire, the police, hygiene and the fixing of prices.''