To-day East and West are meeting to such an extent and in such a way that it seems as if the well-known words of Kipling are conclusively disproved.
The upholders of ideals of 'meeting' must of course remember that in accordance with the organic conception of society Easterners must not turn into cheap copies of Westerners, nor vice versa. It not being our intention to formulate a law, we may but cautiously say that on the whole both Easterners and Westerners will do well to remain what they are, that is to say, keep, as faithfully as is possible in accordance with their inner life, to the ways and forms of expression as handed down to them from former generations.
But both East and West will benefit much by realizing their common humanity and the fundamental oneness of their realizations of Truth and of their aspirations towards the Divine. Next both have of course much to receive from each other. As Romain Rolland wrote in „The Forerunners": "For a long time to come, the intensest joy which man can know on earth, will be derived from supplementing the ideals of Europe by the ideals of Asia". Lord Russell looked at it from another point of view: „Asia must come to the rescue of the world, by causing Western inventiveness to subserve human ends instead of the base cravings of oppression and cruelty, to which it has been prostituted by the dominant nations of the present day" 1). Regarding this the trouble is that the East is also taking over the wrong things! It is of course not necessary to enumerate the different benefits of the various Western sciences which by the East. as far as necessary should be gratefully accepted Perhaps one aspect of the needed change is illustrated in the best and simplest way in the words of a Chinese professor: „The West needs a temple-bell to rest and the East a bugle call to action". That more is wanted however than this or than a mere interchange of achievements, both cultural and material, I want to demonstrate in these pages. Realiz-ation of fundamental oneness, mutual appreciation and inspiration, organic co-operation and cultural synthesis only are of fundamental and real value.
Hindu thought has generally tended to be systematical and synthetical.
As the Right Hon. Ramsay Macdonald expressed it: „If one were to turn to any great philosophy or any great system of thought upon which could be built up a harmony between races, a harmony between conflicting thoughts, where could one go to find it more readily than to the great philosophies of India itself? Those philosophies where brotherhood is inculcated, where peace and harmony and co-operation are enjoined; those philosophies which look at the world not in a mere abstract way but as something essentially composed of differences, and yet essentially calling for a harmony of differences rather than a mere uniformity of thought or of action" 1). The present book will continually provide illustrations of this.
It would not be of much use, and it would not be very interesting either, to study dry historical facts and to critically consider the theories, the ideals and the social structures of the ancients, if we were not sure that these old sociological thoughts and facts are still of so much bearing on actual problems, and if we were not convinced that we could benefit much from them in pointing the way to new developments.
In these pages we intend to inquire into the nature of Dharma fundamental motive force in the life of man as a social being the in connection with a comparative study of the theory and the ideal of Varna ('natural class') and the phenomena of caste in India and incidentally of class in the West. Professor Kern emphasized that the great point is to distinguish between the natural classes or orders, and castes, which cannot have arisen naturally, but are artificial" "). This special line of study however has been rather neglected3).
Vedas (1182)
Upanishads (493)
Puranas (624)
Ramayana (741)
Mahabharata (354)
Dharmasastras (165)
Goddess (496)
Bhakti (242)
Saints (1503)
Gods (1290)
Shiva (370)
Journal (187)
Fiction (60)
Vedanta (362)
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