The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s3.1

c9.s3.1

The right place of Vedic thought in the history of socio-political speculations requires yet to be appropriately grasped by indologists as well as students of sociology and comparative culture-history. Neither the polity nor the political thoughts of the Vedic *Ṛiṣis* (sages), should there be any, can be adequately explained if one approaches the subject from the angle of mythology and religion or from that of the life-history of the sacrificial priest like Vasiṣṭha or Viśvāmitra, nay, of the tribal chief like, say, Sudāsa. This is why, generally speaking, indologists are misled into one-sided views and fail to visualize the genuine problems of the "fire-sages." One does not require to be a tremendous Vedic philologist in order to understand the most elementary fact that the problems of those *Ṛiks* on fire were oriented essentially to *Rassenkampf* or race-struggle. The conflicts were both inter-group and intra-group. The fire-sagas were harnessed to colonising and expansion on the one hand and to inter-tribal war and peace on the other. Altogether, we encounter the atmosphere of jealousy and rage, for instance, like that of Viśvāmitra (*Rig Veda* III, 33, 53, 9-11) and the evocation and development of the aggressive personality of the *viṣ* (race, tribe or folk) group.