Investigating Indian Society- Essays in Honour of Professor S.R. Goyal

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Social philosophy seeks to find out the philosophical implications, meaning and purpose of social phenomena. It is not only the study of social facts; it is also a study of social ideals and value systems. A student of social phenomena enquires into the significance of social values; but for this he must have an understanding of social values in general and also of the ultimate values of human life which a society seeks to achieve. In his writings Professor S.R. Goyal has tried to examine the fundamentals of ancient Indian social system with a view to understanding their inner significance and meaning. Though mainly a scholar of political and religious history, he has shown equal brilliance in dealing with the history of Indian social ideas and structures specially of ancient period. He has written on these subjects primarily in connection with Indian religious and political history, but that does not minimise the originality and significance of his contribution to them. In his writings Goyal has covered almost all the aspects of ancient Indian society and basic concepts which have been accepted through the ages, quite frequently giving novel interpretations and suggestions. He has dealt with the concepts of man, society, community, dharma, caste, karman, samsara, etc. and has also examined the role of religion as a factor of social change in ancient India. He has raised such problems as are discussed below and tried to provide their answer within the ambit of Indian historical and cultural tradition. His contribution to the study of Indian society and social philosophy is, therefore, quite significant.

Goyal begins his A Religious History of Ancient India, Vol. I, with a discussion on the religious ideas and social structures (whenever known) of various races which contributed to the formation of the population of India. Then, in his study of the religion of the Indus civilization he has suggested with some reasons that most likely the supreme god of the authors of the Indus civilization was regarded as the brother and husband both of the mother-goddess most likely a form of Durga and that probably this brother-sister incest had its social aspect also in the form of brother-sister marriages. He connects this suggestion with the Yama-Yami dialogue of the tenth mandala of the Rgveda which refers to the currency of the brother-sister incest in an earlier period (whether the characters of this dialogue are regarded as human or divine), and the instances of brother-sister marriages mentioned in the Jatakas and elsewhere. Thus, he has endeavoured to show that there existed in the Indus society a social custom which was in the eyes of the Vedic Aryans 'against the moral laws of Varuna'. It is one of his seminal contributions to ancient Indian social history which helps us to understand numerous references to brother-sister incest found in the Puranas and other texts which have baffled modern scholars for so long.

In his Religious History, Vol. I, Goyal has also made the remarkable suggestion that the migration of the Aryans into India imparted to their civilization the character of a 'frontier' civilization, the nature of which is so lucidly described by Laski in the context of the American civilization-"its sense of insecurity and robust optimism, its premium on 'success' and reliance on religion as a means unto that. Under such circumstances priests and warrior kings were naturally in the fore and led society." The same features which Laski notices in the formative phase of American civilization are found in the Vedic society which spread from north-west to east. 'marginal' men of the Vedic age. According to Goyal, it were they who were the product of and responsible for the fusion of the Aryan and non-Aryan elements.