Foundations of Indian culture: Dimensions of Ancient Indian Social History

298 Pages·1990·15.134 MB·English

by  Govind Chandra Pandey

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FOUNDATIONS OF
INDIAN CULTURE
VOLUME II
Dimensions of Ancient Indian
Social History
GC) PANDE
MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS
PRIVATE LIMITED e DELHI
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First Edition: Delhi, 1984
Second Edition: Delhi, 1990 [7 2Ue™
© G. C. PANDE ‘AAO
ISBN: 81-208-—0711-1 (Vol. ID) ay.
ISBN: 81—208-0712-x (Set) 3
Also available at:
MOTILAL BANARSIDASS
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Preface
The search for the historical explanation of human life and
thought has led historians to the attempt to go beyond the
surface happenings of short duration to analyse the deeper
structures of longer duration. These have been sought to be
identified as economic or social or even geographical. Many
of these formulations are vitiated by conscious or unconscious
assumptions of a positivistic character. Social formations are
not like natural formations given independently of the
subject. They are in fact subjective-objective in character. As
a consequence social! formations and idea formations can not
really be separated. Being and thought are two inevitably co-
present dimensions. Despite this undeniable quality of
cultural factors it is common now-a-days to find many
historians emphasizing their social origins exclusively. It may
be said that ideas do not simply spring from the head like
‘Minerva in panoply’ but that they derive from a_ historically
given state of social being. But this social being itself is
discernible only through reflection over experience and, as
such, is related to the self-awareness of the subject. In _parti-
cular the historian can not discover social formations except
as revealed in a historical record which is directly expressive
of some consciousness. Thus, despite the radical significance
of social being, it has to be reached and understood in terms
of a tradition of social experience and awareness. In a
profound sense, thus, while social structures underlie surface
events, they are themselves inwardly constituted by ea
historical world of ideas. “Manopubbangama dhamma’, all
phenomena presuppose the mind.
The present work attempts to analyse the social and
idealional foundations of Indian culture. This second part of
the work concentrates on the analysis of the social world
vi FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN CULTURE
which is presupposed by the intellectual and symbolic formu-
lations of the Indian tradition. The analysis of the social
world, however, involves not merely the appraisal of such
objective factors as geugraphy and economy but the delinea-
tion of the awareness within which the apperception of such
factors took place. In dealing with the social tradition its
historicity is sought in the present work to be placed by the
side of that perennial ideality which constitutes its constant
inspiration. Indian society is not sought to be reconstructed
here merely as a museum-model from the scrap-heap of time
but as forms expressive of ideas and values, as a dialectically
developing theme for commentary. The notions of desa-
kala, samyagdaiiva and svadharma may be said to have consti-
tuted the basic matrix of social action presupposed by the
life of contemplation and symbolic expression in Indian
culture.
Apart from the publishers and printers I am thankful to
Dr. S.P. Gupta, Dr. S.K. Gupta, Dr. Umesh Chattopadhyaya,
Dr. L.M. Dubey and Sri A.P. Ojha for the help they have
rendered me in the publication of this book.
Allahabad G. C. Pande
August 17, 1983
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Geographical Identity
. Growth of Population
. Economic Ideas and Attitudes
. Vedic Pattern of Livelihood an
_ Rural Agrarian Pattern in the Post-Vedic Age
The Urban Pattern
. The Standards of Living
. The Development of Socio-ethical Ideas ...
i6=OUtPao)eoN0nhr . Socio-Historical Order : Vedic
. Socio-Historical Order : Post-Vedic 210
. Political Order and Ideas
——©_—
Bibliography
Index