The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s5.1

c9.s5.1

Among the indologists there is often a tendency to read into the Vedic literature some very modern *mores* and institutions. The *Puruṣa-sūkta* (*Rig Veda*, X, 90), composed by the poet or philosopher, Nārāyaṇa, has been the subject of much modernistic interpretation.¹⁷ The castes and caste morals of recent times are alleged to be already in evidence in the Vedic formula as incorporated in those verses. But strictly speaking, neither the origins of classes or castes nor the facts of social superiority or inferiority can be discovered in the atmosphere of this *Sūkta*.