The Social Organization of Indian Civilization

Milton Singer

doi:10.1177/039219216401204506

The Social Organization of Indian Civilization

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024

Milton Singer

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The unity and continuity of Indian civilization is both a commonplace and a problem. It is usually taken for granted as a truth too evident to require proof. Yet when scholars begin to inquire into the exact nature of this unity and continuity and into the ways in which it is attained, they quickly encounter many unanswered questions. In a recent paper on “The Content of Cultural Continuity in India,” the American indologist Professor W. Norman Brown concludes that, while there has been a highly developed civilization on the Indian subcontinent since the third millennium в. с. with many elements of cultural continuity, it remains a problem to say what has given this Indian civilization its distinctive character and vitality. He himself does not believe that this question will be answered by making a catalogue of the hundreds of cultural traits (such as the use of the swastika, the sacredness of the pipal tree and of the cow, the joint family and the caste system, ascetism, the doctrines of karma and rebirth and of ahinsā) which persist across large spans of Indian civilization. Even if the historical and ethnic origins of these traits could be traced, this knowledge would not be sufficient, he thinks, to discover the vitalizing principle of Indian civilization. That principle, he suggests, lies in the field of values and attitudes and not in the material productions of arts, literature, and the sciences, or in particular skills, customs, institutions, or forms of thought. He analyzes, as one example of such a basic value, the notion of duty and the stress on correct action.

Type: Research Article
Information: Diogenes , Volume 12 , Issue 45 , March 1964 , pp. 84 - 119

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/039219216401204506 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © 1964 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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