SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN INDIA: Their Dynamics through the Ages

This remarkable work is a product of sustained collaboration between a Sanskrit scholar and a sociologist for three decades and more. Through meticulous analysis of Sanskrit texts, it lays bare the forces and processes which have shaped the basic elements of social structure and culture in India. It thus provides a new and deeper under-standing of the processes of social change, social stratifications, family, status of woman, religion, the doctrine of Karma, the Sanskaras, the Asramas, and cultural interaction among ancient civilizations. The analysis is truly sociological. It brings out latent function of pervasive beliefs and practices; and in the domain of sociology of knowledge even metaphysical theories are related to factors of social existence. Works on Indian society so far, tend to paraphrase and piece together material drawn from texts composed in widely diverse historical eras. The picture that emerges from such exercise is, therefore, fictitious. It represents no real socio-cultural system. On the other hand, the present work an endeavour to understand the dynamics of various aspects of the social system by relating the content of a text to the socio-cultural era in which it was composed. This work is intended neither to glorify nor to detract, but to give an objective and verifiable account.