The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s3.5

c9.s3.5

Vedic polity cannot be identified with the polity of the chieftain and the priest. It is essentially the polity of the *viṣ*, the demos, the mass. It is the harangues in the "crowd" and addressed to the crowd, no matter whether in the form of hymns, prayers or incantations, that constitute the ideological ecology of the Vedic complex. It is the movements, the mobilizations *en masse*, the *charaiveti*⁷ (move on) of the folk that furnish the *élan vital* of Vedic men and women.