Sarkar's
Theory of Social Change:
Structure
and Transcendence
Personal
History
Prabhat
Rainjan Sarkar was born in May of 1921 in Bihar of an old and
respected family that had its roots in regional leadership and in
ancient spiritual traditions. Sarkar's
early life was dominated by fantastic events, spiritual miracles and
brushes with death. He
was nearly killed in his early years by a religious sect who
believed that Sarkar was destined to destroy their religion (as
astrologers had predicted about Sarkar).
Surviving this event and many other similar ones, by the
1950's he had become a spiritualist with many followers.
In 1955, he founded the socio-spiritual organization Ananda
Marga. Soon
after, he articulated a new political-economic theory and social
movement called the Progressive Utilization Theory or PROUT.
Ananda
Marga and PROUT grew quickly in the 1960's and managed to attract
opposition from numerous Hindu groups, they believing Sarkar to be
an iconoclast because of his opposition to caste (jhat) and
his criticism of orthodox schools of Indian philosophy. By the late
1960's his followers were in key positions in the Indian civil
service. The government
argued that it was a politically subversive revolutionary
organization and banned civil servants from joining it.
Ananda Marga asserted that it was being harassed because of
its opposition to governmental corruption.
In
1971, Sarkar was accused of murdering his disciples and jailed.
Before Sarkar's eyes his movement was decimated and publically
labelled as a terrorist organization.
In 1975 with the onset of the Indian Emergency his
organizations were banned and his trial conducted in an atmosphere
where defense witnesses were jailed if they spoke for Sarkar.
Notwithstanding reports by the International Commission of Jurists
and other associations of the partial judicial conditions making it
impossible for Sarkar to receive a fair trial, Sarkar was convicted.1
When the Gandhi government was removed, his case was appealed
and reversed. During
those difficult years, Sarkar fasted in protest of the trial and the
numerous tortures committed by the police and intelligence agencies
on his workers and himself. By
the 1980's his movement grew again expanding to nearly 120 nations.
Until
his death on October 21, 1990 Sarkar remained active in Calcutta
composing nearly 5000 songs called Prabhat Samgiit
(songs of the new dawn), giving spiritual talks, giving discourses
on languages, managing his organizations, and teaching meditation to
his numerous disciples, especially his senior monks and nuns, avadhutas
and avadhutikas. His most recent project was Ananda Nagar
or the City of Bliss and other alternative communities throughout
the world. These
communities have been designed with PROUT principles in mind:
ecologically conscious, spiritually aware, socially progressive and
embedded in the culture of the area.
THE
PERSONAL AND SOCIAL
Sarkar
places the rise, fall and rise of his movement in the same language
that he uses to explain aspects of history.
For him, whenever truth is stated in spiritual or material
areas of life, there is resistance.
This resistance eventually is destroyed by the very forces it
uses to destroy truth. "Remember,
by an unalterable decree of history, the evil forces are destined to
meet their doomsday."2
For
Sarkar movements follow a dialectical path: thesis, antithesis and
synthesis. A movement
is born, it is suppressed and oppressed (if it truly challenges the
distribution of meanings of power), and if it survives these
challenges it will be victorious.
The strength of the movement can be measured by its ability
to withstand these challenges.
Sarkar's
own life and the life of his organizations follow this pattern,
although at this point the success of the PROUT movement has yet to
be determined. In our
interpretation, it is this mythic language that is also perhaps the
best way to understand his theory of history, for it is myth that
gives meaning to reality, that makes understandable the moments and
monuments of our daily lives and that gives a call to sacrifice the
moment so as to create a better tomorrow.
Sarkar's
universe is the habitat of grand struggles between vidya and avidya:
introversion and extroversion, contraction and expansion, compassion
and passion. This
duality is an eternal part of the very metaphysic of the physical
and social universe. Unlike
the Western model where social history can end with the perfect
marketplace or the conflict-free communist state, for the Indian,
for Sarkar, social history will always continue.
Only for the individual through spiritual enlightenment can
time cease and the "mind" itself (and thus duality) be
transcended.
SARKAR'S
LARGER CIVILIZATIONAL PROJECT
Sarkar's
intent was and is (his organizations continue his work) to create a
global spiritual socialist revolution, a renaissance in thought,
language, music, art, and culture.
His goal is to infuse individuals with a spiritual presence,
the necessary first step in changing the way that we know and order
our world. Unlike the
socialists of the past who merely sought to capture state
power--forgetting that the economy was global and thus in the long
run strengthening the world capitalist system--or the utopian
idealists who merely wished for perfect places that could not
practically exist or spiritualists who only sought individual
transformation at the expense of structural change, Sarkar has a far
more comprehensive view of transformation of which his social cycle
provides the key structure.
His
theoretical offerings include a range of new approaches to
understanding social reality. His
theory of neo-humanism aims to relocate the self from ego (and the
pursuit of individual maximization), from family (and the pride of
genealogy), from geo-sentiments (attachments to land and nation),
from socio-sentiments (attachments to class, race and community)
from humanism (man as the center of the universe) to neo-humanism
(love and devotion for all, inanimate and animate, beings of the
universe). Paramount
here is the construction of self in an ecology of reverence for
life, not a modern/secular politics of cynicism.
Spiritual devotion to the universe is ultimately the greatest
treasure that humans have; it is this treasure that must be
excavated and shared by all living beings.
Only
from this basis can a new universalism emerge which can challenge
the national, religious, class sentiments of history. The first
step, then, is liberating the intellect from its own boundaries and
placing it in an alternative discourse.
Sarkar then seeks to make accessible an alternative way of
knowing the world that includes yet steps beyond traditional
knowledge points; reason, sense-inference, authority, and intuition.
The
central framework for his neo-humanistic perspective is his
Progressive Utilization Theory.
PROUT encompasses Sarkar's theory of history and change, his
theory of leadership and the vanguard of the new world he envisions,
as well as his alternative political economy.
THEORY
OF HISTORY
His
theory of history constructs four classes: workers, warriors,
intellectuals, and accumulators of capital.
Each class can be perceived not merely as a power
configuration, but as a way of knowing the world, as a paradigm,
episteme or deep structure, if you will.
In Sarkar's language this is collective psychology or varna
(here, dramatically reinterpreting caste). At the individuals level
there is varna mobility, one can change the influence of history and
social environment! At
the macro level, each varna comes into power bringing in positive
necessary changes, but over time exploits and then dialectically
creates the conditions for the next varna.
This cycle continues through history and for Sarkar is indeed
an iron law of history, true irrespective of space/time and observer
conditions. It is a law
because it has developed historically through evolution and because
the cycle represents a universal social structure.
For Sarkar, there have been four historical ways humans have
dealt with their physical and social environment:
either by being dominated by it, by dominating it through
the body, dominating it through the mind, or dominating it through
the environment itself.
While
the parallel to caste is there (shudra, ksattriya, brahmin
and vaeshya), Sarkar redefines them locating the four as
broader social categories that have historically evolved through
interaction with the environment. Moreover, varna for individuals is
fluid, one can change one's varna through education, for example.
Caste, on the other hand, developed with the conquest of the local
Indians by the Aryans and was later reinscribed by the Vedic
priestly classes.3
Sarkar
believes that while the social cycle must always move through these
four classes, it is possible to accelerate the stages of history and
remove the periods of exploitation.
Thus Sarkar would place the sadvipra, the
compassionate servant leader, at the center of the cycle, at the
center of society (not necessarily at the center of government).
In his life, Sarkar's efforts were to create this type of
leadership instead of building large bureaucratic organizations. He
sought to create a new type of leadership that was humble and could
serve, that was courageous and could protect, that was insightful
and could learn and teach, and that was innovative and could use
wealth--in a word, the sadvipra.
These
leaders would, in effect, attempt to create a permanent revolution
of sorts, creating a workers' revolution when the capitalists begin
to move from innovation to commodification, a warriors' revolution
when the workers' era moves from societal transformation to
political anarchy, an intellectual revolution when the warrior era
expands too far--becomes overly centralized and stagnates
culturally--and an economic revolution when the intellectuals use
their normative power to create a universe where knowledge is only
available to the select few, favoring non-material production at the
expense of material production.
Through the intervention of the sadvipra, Sarkar's social
cycle becomes a spiral: the cycles of the stages remains but one era
is transformed into its antithesis when exploitation increases. This
leads to the new synthesis and the possibility of social progress
within the structural confines of the four basic classes.
Sarkar's theory allows for a future that while patterned can
still dramatically change. For Sarkar, there are long periods of
rest and then periods of dramatic social and biological revolution.
Future events such as the coming polar shift, the possible
ice age, increased spiritual developments in humans due to various
spiritual practices, and the social-economic revolution he envisions
may create the possibility for a jump in human consciousness.4
Sarkar's
theoretical framework is not only spiritual or only concerned with
the material world, rather his perspective argues that the real is
physical, mental and spiritual.
Concomitantly, the motives for historical change are struggle
with the environment (the move from the worker era to the warrior
era), struggle with ideas (the move from the warrior to the
intellectual), struggle with the environment and ideas (the move
from the intellectual era to the capitalist eras) and the spiritual
attraction of the Great, the call of the infinite.
Thus physical, mental and spiritual challenges create change.
Table:
Sarkar's Stages
Shudra
Worker
Dominated by Environment
Ksattriya
Warrior
Struggle with and dominates Environment
Vipra
Intellectual
Struggle with and dominates Ideas
Vaeshya
Capitalist
Struggle with and dominates Environment/Ideas
The
key to Sarkar's theory of history, thus, is that there are four
structures and four epochs in history.
Each epoch exhibits a certain mentality, a varna.
This varna is similar to the concept of episteme, to
paradigm, to ideal type, to class, to stage, to era and a host of
other words that have been used to describe stage theory.
Sarkar, himself, alternatively uses varna and collective
psychology to describe his basic concept.
Collective psychology reflects group desire, social desire.
There are four basic desire systems.
The four varnas are historically developed.
First the shudra, then the ksattriya, then the vipra,
then the vaeshya. The
last era is followed either by a revolution by the shudras or an
evolution into the shudra era.
The
order is cyclical, but there are reversals.
A counter evolutionary movement or a more dramatic counter
revolution which may throw an era backwards, such as a military
ksattriyan leaders wresting power from a vipran-led government.
Both are short-lived in terms of the natural cycle since both
move counter to the natural developmental flow.
But in the long run, the order must be followed.
Significantly--and
this is important in terms of developing an exemplary theory of
macrohistory--Sarkar does not resort to external variables to
explain the transition into the next era.
It is not new technologies that create a new wealthy elite
that can control the vipras, rather it is a fault within the viprans
themselves. Moreover,
it is not that they did not meet a new challenge, or respond
appropriately, as Toynbee would argue.
Rather, Sarkar's reasoning is closer to Ibn Khaldun's and
other classical philosophers. They
create a privileged ideological world or conquer a material world,
use this expansion to take care of their needs, but when changes
come, they are unprepared for they themselves have degenerated.
While changes are often technological (new inventions and
discoveries of new resources) it is not the significant variable,
rather it is the mindset of the vipran, individually and as a class,
that leads to their downfall.
ALTERNATIVE
POLITICAL-ECONOMY
Embedded
in his social theory is Sarkar's alternative political economy.
In this project he designs his ideal theory of value.
For Sarkar there are physical, intellectual and spiritual
resources. Most
economic theory privileges the material forgetting the intellectual
and especially the infinite spiritual resources available to us.
Secondly, his theory uses as its axial principle the notion
of social justice, the notion of actions not for selfish pleasure
but for the social good.
Society
is perceived not as an aggregate of self-contained individuals nor
as a mass collectivity designed for the commune, but rather as a
family moving together on a journey through social time and space.
Within the family model there is hierarchy and there is
unity. Newly created
wealth is used to give incentives to those who are actualizing their
self, either through physical, intellectual or spiritual labor, and
is used to maintain and increase basic needs--food, clothing,
housing, education and medical care.
Employment, while guaranteed, still requires effort, since
central to Sarkar's metaphysics is that struggle is the essence of
life. It is challenge
that propels humans, collectively and individually, towards new
levels of physical wealth, intellectual understanding and spiritual
realization. Sarkar
speaks of incentives not in terms of cash, but in terms of resources
that can lead to more wealth.
Finally,
Sarkar would place limits on personal income and land holdings for
the world physical resources are limited and the universe
cannot be owned by any individual since it is nested in a higher
consciousness, the Supreme Consciousness.
THE
INDIAN EPISTEME AND THE INDIAN CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY
Following
the classic Indian episteme, reality has many levels; most
ideologies only have accentuated the spiritual (Vedanta) or the
material (liberalism), or the individual (capitalism) or the
collective (communism), the community (Gandhism), or race
(Hitlerism) or the nation (fascism).
Sarkar seeks an alternative balance of self, community,
ecology, and globe. Yet
the spiritual is his base. In
his view Consciousness from pure existence transforms to awareness
then to succeeding material factors (the Big Bang onwards) until it
becomes matter. From
matter, there is dialectical evolution to humans.
Humans, finally, can devolve back to the inanimate or evolve
as co-creators with consciousness.
For humans, there is structure and choice, nature and will.
There is both creation and there is evolution.
With this epistemic background, we should then not be
surprised at his dual interests in the material and spiritual worlds
and their dynamic balance.
Placing
Sarkar in an alternative construction of the real is central to
understanding his social theory.
Every macrohistorian and thinker who creates a new discourse
evokes the universal and the transcendental, but their grand efforts
also spring from the dust and the mud of the mundane.
They are born in particular places and they die in locatable
sites as well. Sarkar
writes from India, writes from the poverty that is Calcutta.
The centrality of the cycle then can partially be understood
by its physical location. The
cycle promises a better future ahead; it promises that the powerful
will be made weak and the weak powerful, the rich will be humbled
and the poor enabled. The
cycle also comes directly from the classic Indian episteme.
In this ordering of knowledge, the real has many levels and
is thus pluralistic; the inner mental world is isomorphic with the
external material world, there are numerous ways of knowing the
real, and time is grand. According
to Romila Thapar, "Hindu thinkers had evolved a cyclic theory
of time. The cycle was
called the kalpa and was equivalent to 4320 million earthly
years. The kalpa
is divided into 14 periods and at the end of each of these the
universe is recreated and once again Manu (primeval man)
gives birth to the human race."5
In
this classical model (ascribed to the Gita) the universe is
created, it degenerates, and then is recreated.
The pattern is eternal.
This pattern has clear phases; the golden era of Krta
or Satya, the silver era of Treta, the copper era of Dvapara
and the iron age of Kali.
At the end of Kali, however, the great redeemer whether
Vishnu or Shiva or Krishna, is reborn, the universe is realigned, dharma
or truth is restored, and the cycle begins again.
Now
is there a way out? An
escape from the cycle? Classically it has been through an alchemical
ontological transformation of the self: the self realizing its real
nature and thus achieving timelessness--the archetype of the yogi.
Concretely, in social reality this has meant the
transformation of a person engrossed in fear to a mental state where
nothing is feared, neither king nor priest; all are embraced, lust
and greed are transcended and individual inner peace is achieved.
To this archetype, Sarkar has added a collective level
asserting that individual liberation must exist in parallel and in
the context of social liberation.
Spirituality is impossible in the context of the social body
suffering in pain. For
him the world has a 6 defective
social order.... this state of affairs cannot be allowed to
continue. This
structure of inequality and injustice must be destroyed and powdered
down for the collective interest of the human beings.
Then and then alone, humans may be able to lead the society
on the past of virtue. Without
that only a handful of persons can possibly attain the Supreme
Perfection.
But
Sarkar too uses the redeemer concept to provide the way out of
cyclical history. This
is his taraka brahma.
The first was Shiva who transformed the chaos of primitive
life to the orderliness of humanity. Next was Krishna who restored
the notion of national community.
And, for Sarkar, another redeemer is needed to transform the
fragmented nation-states into a world community.
However, paradoxically the concept of the redeemer for Sarkar
is also metaphorical:
it is meant to elicit devotion by making the impersonal nature of
Consciousness touchable in the form of a personal guru.
Sarkar
thus develops ways out of the cycle: individual and social. In
contrast Orientalist interpreters like Mircea Eliade believe that
the theory of eternal cycles is "invigorating and consoling for
man under the terror of history,"7 as now man knows
under which eras he must suffer and he knows that the only escape is
spiritual salvation. Sarkar finds this view repugnant, for people
suffer differently and differentially in each era, those at the
center of power do better than those at the outskirts, laborers
always do poorly. Indeed
throughout history different classes do better than other classes,
but the elite manage quite well.8
Oftentimes, some people have lagged behind, exhausted and
collapsed on the ground, their hands and knees bruised and their
clothes stained with mud. Such
people have been thrown aside with hatred and have become the
outcastes of society. They
have been forced to remain isolated from the mainstream of social
life. This is the kind
of treatment they have received.
Few have cared enough to lift up those who lagged behind, to
help them forward.
Hope
lies not in resignation to but transformation of the cycle--it is
here that Sarkar moves away from the classic Hindu model of the
real--of caste, fatalism, and mentalism--most likely influenced by
fraternal Islamic concepts, liberal notions of individual will, and
by Marxist notions of class struggle.
For
Sarkar there are different types of time.
There is cosmic time --the degeneration and regeneration of dharma;
there is individual liberation from time through entrance into
infinite time; and there is the social level of time wherein the
times of exploitation are reduced through social transformation,
thus creating a time of dynamic balance--a balance between the
physical, social and spiritual.
This
differs significantly from other views of Indian history. In the Idealistic
view history is but the play or sport of Consciousness.9
In this view the individual has no agency and suffering is an
illusion. In the dynastic
view history is but the succeeding rise and falls of dynasties and
kings and queens; it is only the grand that have agency.
In contrast is Aurobindo's10 interpretation,
influenced by Hegel, in which instrumentality is assigned to
historical world leaders and to nations.
For Sarkar, making nationalism into a spiritual necessity is
an unnecessary reading. God
does not prefer any particular structure over another.
Following
Aurobindo, Buddha Prakash has taken the classic Hindu stages of
gold, silver, copper and iron and applied them concretely to modern
history. India, for
Prakash, with nation-hood and industrialism has now wakened to a
golden age that "reveals the jazz and buzz of a new age of
activity."11 But
for Sarkar, the present is not an age of awakening, but an age
"where on the basis of various arguments a handful of parasites
have gorged themselves on the blood of millions of people, while
countless people have been reduced to living skeletons."12
Sarkar
also rejects the modern linear view of history in which
history is divided into ancient (Hindu), medieval (Muslim), and
modern (British-nationalistic).
In this view, England is modern and India is backward.
If only India can adopt rational, secular and capitalist or
socialist perspectives and institutions, that is, modern policies,
it too can join the western world.
India then has to move from prehistorical society--people
lost in spiritual fantasy and caste but without state--to modern
society.13 Sarkar's
views are closer to Jawaharlal Nehru14 who thought that
history is about how humanity overcame challenges and struggled
against the elements and inequity.
Sarkar's views are also similar to the recent
"Subaltern"15 project in which the aim is to
write history from the view of the dominated classes, not the elite
or the colonial. However, unlike the Subaltern project which eschews
meta-narratives, Sarkar's social cycle provides a new grand theory.
SARKAR'S
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Sarkar's
stages can be used to contextualize Indian history.16
Just as there are four types of mentalities, structures or
types, we can construct four types of history.
There is the shudra history, the project of the Subaltern
group. However, their
history is not written by the workers themselves but clearly by
intellectuals. There is
then ksattriyan history; the history of kings and empires, of
nations and conquests, of politics and economics.
This is the history of the State, of great men and women.
Most history is vipran history, for most history is written and told
by intellectuals, whatever their claims for the groups they
represent. Vipran
history is also the philosophy of history: the development of
typologies, of categories of thought, of the recital of genealogies,
of the search for evidence, of the development of the field of
history itself. This is
the attempt to undo the intellectual constructions of others and
create one's own, of asking is there one construction or can there
be many constructions? Finally, there is vaeshyan history.
This is the history of wealth, of economic cycles, of the
development of the world capitalist system, of the rise of Europe
and the fall of India. Marxist
history is unique in that it is written by intellectuals for workers
but used by warriors to gain power over merchants.
Sarkar attempts to write a history that includes all four
types of power: people's, military, intellectual and economic.
For
Sarkar, most history is written to validate a particular mentality.
Each varna writes a history to glorify its conquests, its
philosophical realizations, or its technological breakthroughs, but
rarely is history written around the common woman or man. For Sarkar,
history should be written about how humans solved challenges.
How prosperity was gained.
"History... should maintain special records of the
trials and tribulations which confronted human beings, how those
trials and tribulations were overcome, how human beings tackled the
numerous obstacles to effect great social development."17
History then needs to aid in mobilizing people, personally
and collectively toward internal exploration and external
transformation. Thus
history should be a "resplendent reflection of collective life
whose study will be of immense inspiration for future
generations."18 History then is a political asset.
Here Sarkar moves to a poststructural understanding of the
true. Truth is
interpretive, not rta (the facts) but satya (that
truth which leads to human welfare).
History then should not be placed solely within the
empiricist view, but within an interpretive political perspective.
Sarkar's
own history is meant to show the challenges humans faced: the
defeats and the victories. His
history shows how humans were dominated by particular eras, how they
struggled and developed new technologies, ideas, and how they
realized the atman, the, the eternal self.
It is an attempt to write a history that is true to the
victims but does not oppress them again by providing no escape from
history, no vision of the future.
His history then is clearly ideological, not in the sense of
supporting a particular class, but rather a history that gives
weight to all classes yet attempts to move them outside of class,
outside of ego and toward neo-humanism.
CONCLUSION
History
then is the natural evolutionary flow of this cycle.
At every point there are a range of choices; once made the
choice becomes a habit, a structure of the collective or group mind.
Each mentality, with an associated leadership class comes
into power, makes changes, and administers government but eventually
pursues its own class ends and exploits the other groups.
This has continued throughout history.
Sarkar's unit of analysis begins with all of humanity, it is
a history of humanity, but he often refers to countries and nations.
The relationship to the previous era is a dialectical one; an era
emerges out of the old era. History moves not because of external
reasons, although the environment certainly is a factor, but because
of internal organic reasons. Each
era gains power--military, normative, economic or chaotic--and then
accumulates power until the next group dislodges the previous elite.
The metaphysic behind this movement is, for Sarkar, the wave
motion. There is a rise
and then a fall. In
addition, this wave motion is pulsative, that is, the speed of
change fluctuates over time. The
driving force for this change is first the dialectical interaction
with the environment, second the dialectical interaction in the mind
and in ideologies, and third the dialectical interaction between
both, ideas and the environment.
But there is also another motivation: this is the attraction
toward the Great. The individual attraction toward the Supreme.
This is the ultimate desire that frees humans of all desires.
While
clash, conflict and cohesion with the natural and social environment
drives the cycle, it is the attraction to the Great, the infinite,
that is the solution or the answer to the problem of history.
It results in progress.
For Sarkar, the cycle must continue, for it is a basic
structure in mind, but exploitation is not a necessity.
Through the sadvipra, exploitation can be minimized.
To
conclude, Sarkar's theory uses the metaphor of the human life cycle and
the ancient wheel, that is, technology.
There is the natural and there is human intervention.
There is a structure and there is choice.
It is Sarkar's theory that provides this intervention; an
intervention that for Sarkar will lead to humanity as a whole
finally taking its first deep breath of fresh air.
NOTES
1.
See Vimala Schneider, The Politics of Prejudice.
Denver, Ananda Marga Publications, 1983.
Also see, Tim Anderson, Free Alister, Dunn and Anderson.
Sidney, Wild and Wolley, 1985. And, Anandamitra Avadhutika, Tales
of Torture. Hong Kong, Ananda Marga Publications, 1981.
2.
Ananda Marga, Ananda Vaniis. Bangkok, Ananda Marga
Publications, 1982.
3.
For various interpretations of caste in Indian history and
politics, see Nicholas Dirks, The Hollow Crown. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1987; Rajni Kothari, Caste in Indian
Politics. New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1970; Louis Dumont, Homo
Hierarchicus. Chicago,
The University of Chicago Press, 1979; and, Romila Thapar, A
History of India. Baltimore, Penguin Books, 1966.
4.
See Richard Gauthier, "The Greenhouse Effect, Ice Ages
and Evolution," New Renaissance (Vol. 1, No. 3, 1990).
5.
Romila Thapar, A History of India, 161.
6.
P. R. Sarkar, Supreme Expression. Vol. II.
Netherlands, Nirvikalpa Press, 1978, 16.
7.
Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return. New
Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1971, 118.
8.
P. R. Sarkar, The
Liberation of Intellect--Neo Humanism. Calcutta, Ananda Marga
Publications, 1983.
9.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, "History: An Idealist's
View." K.
Satchidananda Murti, ed. Readings. See
K. Satchidananda Murti, "History: A Theist's View."
K. Satchidananda Murti, ed. Readings.
10.
Sri Aurobindo, "The
Spirituality and Symmetric Character of Indian Culture," and
"The Triune Reality," K. Satchidananda Murty, ed. Readings
in Indian History, Philosophy and Politics. London. George Allen
and Unwin, 1967, p. 361. Also see Vishwanath Prasad Varma. Studies
in Hindu Political Thought and its Metaphysical Foundations.
Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1974.
11.
See Buddha Prakash, "The Hindu Philosophy of
History." Journal of the History of Ideas (Vol. 16, No.
4, 1958).
12.
Shrii Anandamurti, Namah Shivaya Shantaya. Calcutta,
Ananda Marga Publications, 1982, 165.
13.
See Ronald Inden, "Orientalist Constructions of
India." Modern Asian Studies (Vol. 20, No. 3, 1986). See
also Edward Said, Orientalism. New York, Vintage Books, 1979.
And, Ashis Nandy, Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias. New
Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1987.
14.
Jawaharlal Nehru, "History: A Scientific Humanist's
View." K. Satchidananda Murti, ed. Readings.
15.
Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Selected
Subaltern Studies. New York, Oxford University Press, 1988.
See also D.D. Kosambit, "A Marxist Interpretation of
Indian History." K. Satchidananda Murty, ed. Readings,
40.
16.
See also Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Romila Thapar, eds. Situating
Indian History. Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1986.
17.
P. R. Sarkar. A Few Problems Solved. Vol. 4. trans.
Acarya Vijayananda Avadhuta. Calcutta, Ananda Marga Publications,
1987, 64.
18.
ibid, 66.
