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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s2: Vedic Positivism

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s2

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Vedic Positivism

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The ideals of the Ṛiṣis of the Vedic culture-complex are not very metaphysical or other-worldly, the atmosphere of sacrifices, hymns, prayers and gods notwithstanding. The literature is preoccupied with the annihilation of the enemy, the seizure of enemy properties, the distribution of the booty, the expansion of one's territory, and the attainment of the highest position in the society of men. It describes jealousies, ambitions, hatreds, wars, elections, harangues, and rivalries for accession to the throne.⁴

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⁴ Zimmer: *Altindisches Leben* (Berlin 1879), pp. 162-165

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The regime of *stena* (thieves) is feared in the *Rig Veda* (II. 23, 16). The *Atharva Veda* (XIX, 17) writes of the fears and dangers of the night, such as thieves, wolves and snakes. Criminology is in evidence.

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The *Rig Veda* (X, 173) furnishes us with a hymn sung on the occasion of installing an elected king. It speaks of the steadfastness of the rock, Indra, the heaven, the earth, and the mountain, and it calls upon the king to be true or loyal to the viṣ (folk).

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The *Atharva Veda* describes the ceremonies associated with the election of kings. In I, 9, prayer is being offered to Agni to the effect that he should advance the person that is being elected as king to the *śraiṣṭhya* i.e. the first place among the *sajāta* or kith and kin.

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The blessings to be showered on the elected king are likewise the stuff of some of the hymns of the *Atharva Veda*. In III, 4 one of the greetings to the king from the people is described as life up to the 100th year. Indra is prayed to in IV, 22 in order that the king may rise to the highest of human kings and become the only ruler of the world.

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The poets of the *Atharva Veda* likewise are not often carried away by extra doses of idealistic imagination. In IV, 11 we read certain things such as might inspire a Marxist to discover the "economic interpretation of history." The draft-ox is there described as "sustaining the earth and sky." He "sustains the wide atmosphere." He "sustains the six directions." He has "entered into all existence." "With his feet treading down debility, with his thighs extracting refreshing milk, with weariness go the draft-ox and the ploughman unto sweet drink."

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At another place (VI, 142) the barley is being asked to rise up and become "abundant with its own greatness,"

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to be "unexhausted like the ocean." The "increase of barley" as furnishing the material foundation of life and prosperity has further evoked from Viśvāmitra the following verse:⁵ "Unexhausted be thine attendants, unexhausted thy heaps, thy bestowers be unexhausted, thy eaters be unexhausted," says he. From food resources to population the entire gamut is embodied in this prayer of a Vedic *Ṛiṣi*.

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⁵ Whitney and Lanman: *Atharva Veda* (Harvard Oriental Series 1905), First Half, pp. 163-166, 387. For the homage to the cow (X, 10) see pp. 605-609.

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It is not necessary to be monistic enough to describe the *Atharva Veda* as nothing but a document of economic ideas and institutions. But such verses, and their name is legion, should compel indologists to banish from their mentality the ultra-Hegelian and romantic conception of Vedic literature as being nothing but religious, metaphysical or mystical. It is only necessary to be adequately oriented to Vedic positivism at the threshold of investigations into the literature and life of the thousand years previous to the rise of powerful kingdoms in the age of Bimbisāra, Mahāvīra, and Sākya the Buddha.

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