Page:An Essay On Hinduism.pdf/4

VERY often a question is asked, "What is the relation of caste system to Hindu religion?" A question like this is easy enough to ask, but very difficult to answer. The difficulty is not due to the incomprehensibility of the phenomena themselves but to the false ideas which exist as a result of the present currency of a wrong system of thought. The study of social science in Europe is new, and new as it is, it has received a very one-sided development. The students of social sciences had not a good knowledge of civilizations other than occidental. Moreover, their ideas have been fettered by the limitations of their own languages, and this fact prevented them from studying their own civilization in a manner sufficiently objective. In order to answer the above question properly it would be necessary to correct radical misconceptions and to modify terminologies and classifications. An occidental reader is to be carried into a presentation of entirely different social phenomena, which are to be explained to him in a language not very well suited to interpret them.

In order to answer the above question, it is necessary to lay down principles of the scientific study of religions, yet crudely developed. I am also compelled to make a digression in logic and method in order to justify my departure from existing usage and my propagations of new terms and distinctions. More than this. In order to explain the for-