Paper II
Perspectives of Indian Society-I
DIRECTORATE OF DISTANCE & CONTINUING EDUCATION
UTKAL UNIVERSITY, Vani Vihar
Bhubaneswar, India
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UNIT-I
INDOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
1.1.
Indology: Meaning and Definition
Indology is known as the science of Indian Society. The Indological perspective claims to understand Indian Society through the concepts, theories and frameworks that are closely associated with Indian Civilization. It made a claim that Indian Society is unique in structure, function and dynamics and cannot be associated with the European Society. Indology relies on book view and culture and denounces rigorous empirical investigation.
Indology is both an approach to study the Indian Society and also an independent discipline with
Indian Society as subject matter. In both the form Indology consists of studying language, beliefs, ideas, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, rituals, ceremonies and other related components of culture.
Indology demands inter-disciplinary, multi- disciplinary and cross disciplinary approach.
Indology is also older than Sociology. It is antique in its origin owing its origin to 1784 by Sir
William Jones of Calcutta. It was in the year 1987 that Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic
Society of Bengal where he introduced the two departments of Sanskrit and Indology. It is the beginning of Indology in India, which has been followed by several other scholars.
1.2.
Scholars of Indology
As it is a fact that Indology is more a textual study, so a lot of scholars have conducted their studies depending on text. The studies conducted during this period covers a wide range of subjects such as social structure and relationships, cultural values, kinship, ideology, cultural
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transactions and symbolism of life and the world etc. the studies based on text s have been conducted by many scholars, such as Bernett (1976), David (1973), Fruzzetti and Oslor (1976),
Inden and Nicholas (1972), Khare (1975, 1976), Murray
References: Joshi. P.C. (2000), Remembering M.N. Srinivas’, Sociological Bulletin, Vol.49, No.1. Srinivas. M.N. (1952), Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India, Oford Clarendon Press, Oxford Srinivas. M.N. (1955), India’s Village, Asia Publishing House, Bombay Dube Dube. S. C. (1958) India’s Changing Villages, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 40 A.R Desai was born on April 16, 1915 at Nadiad in Gujarat and died in 1994 at Baroda. He consistently advocated and applied dialectical-historical model in his sociological studies