DHARMASASTRA AND MODERN INDIAN SOCIETY: A PRELIMINARY EXPLORATION

Abstract

How do ordinary human beings make the ordinary, or, on occasions the momen- tous, decisions of everyday life? Is it simply an existential reaction? If so, is the instancity hedged in by the virtue or malice of their past? And, is this past weakly or mightily influenced by the traditions that they are a part of and which are a part of them? Our inquiry does not just relate to the reactions of people but the reasons on which these reactions are founded. In other words, we are concerned with the humanness of the reaction. In an elegant passage Karl Marx distinguishes the uniqueness of man's labour power when compared with the breathtaking effi- ciency of ants, bees and spiders.