CHAPTER III

NEW SOCIAL IDEAS

[_Purusha, the One Spirit, embodied,_]

"Whom gods and holy men made their oblation.
With Purusha as victim, they performed
A sacrifice. When they divided him,
How did they cut him up? What was his mouth?
What were his arms? And what, his thighs and feet?
The Brahman was his mouth; the kingly soldier
Was made his arms; the husbandman, his thighs;
The servile Sudra issued from his feet."

From the _Rigveda_, Mandala x. 90,
translated by Sir M. MONIER WILLIAMS.


[Sidenote: Caste represses individuality.]

New ideas in the social sphere first claim our attention. The individual
and the community, each have rights, says a writer on the philosophy of
history, and it is hurtful when the balance is not preserved. If the
community be not securely established, the individuals will have no
opportunity to develop; if the individual be not free, the community can
have no real greatness. Speaking broadly, when Western social ideas meet
Indian, the conflict is between the rights of the individual as in
Western civilisation, and the rights of the community or society as in
the Indian. India stands for the statical _social_ forces, modern Europe