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trials and tribulations of ages and these would have and could have wiped out completely the Indian culture from the face of the earth. Our culture and civilization lived through heaviest odds and this became possible because of this sound and firms basis. The same basis has shaped and coloured the Hindu social organisation, its Institutions, thought and philosophy that may be accepted as the most important aspect of Indian culture. The present volume discusses and analyses the social history as it has evolved through the ages. The author rightly observes in his 'Preface' that "This second part of the work concentrates on the analysis of the social world ......... In dealing with the social tradition, its historicity is sought in the present work to be placed by the side of that perennial identity which constitutes its constant inspiration ...... the notions of desakāla, samyagājiva and svadharma may be said to have constituted the basic matrix of social action presupposed by the life of contemplation and symbolic expression in Indian culture.” The purpose, approach and importance of the study, the line of thinking and argumeet are explained here in brief.
The work starts with an Introduction which is rather too brief, i.e, in just 6 pages. The purpose of the work, its title and hypothesis are not elaborated or well explained or clearly laid down here, though the author stresses the conception of social bistory in these words of Trevelyan
" The appeal of such history is basically imaginative and lies in the desire to feel the reality of life in the past, to be familiar with the chronicle of wasted time for the sake of ladies dead and lovely knights" • (P.I)
but he more or less rejects this view and claims to go far deeper in the question of grasping the human nature; in the forces that determine the social process and constitute its relationship to human nature as a whole. For that he goes to the " Ideational Foundations of society and their historicity” that brings him to the analysis of social consciousness in the Indian tradition. Man's true identity is spiritual and transcendental and can be realized only inwardly in terms of his relationship to God or the Absolute", (p.2), though for practical purposes man acquires : an identity in psycho physical and social terms.” Here, we may add that, as the facts stand in the Indian social tradition, bearing aside a few exceptions, (i) normally, all men must pass through all the stages of life. This is natural to most men and women physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Consequently, (ii) Iodians have drunk deep at
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