7 - Religion India

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Religion and Social Change in India: The Max Weber Thesis, Phase ThreeAuthor(s): Milton SingerReviewed work(s):Source: Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Jul., 1966), pp. 497-505Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1152154 .

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RELIGIONAND SOCIALCHANGE IN INDIA:THEMAXWEBERTHESIS,PHASETHREE*Milton SingerThe University of Chicago

Contemporary discussions of the influence of religion on social change are largely domi-nated by Max Weber' s thesis on the role of the Protestant ethic in the rise of capitalism.In fact, this thesis, in one form or another, has been the point of departure for analysisof the conditions of economic growth in those countries outside of Europe which have launchedon modernization programs since Weber wrote. We have gone through two phases in thenon-European application of Weber's argument. In the first phase, illustrated by Weber' sown studies of Asian religions and of the sociology of religion generally, as well as bythose of many of his followers, the thesis was applied negatively. It was contended thatAsian religions lacked certain critical elements present in the European case-a Protestantethic, or rationality, or secularization-and that the absence of these elements explainedbackward economic development. Weber himself did not stop here, but went on to analyzein informed detail the ideologies and social organizations of certain Asian religions and totrace their consequences for everyday life. It is a tribute to his scholarship that much inhis studies remains valid and valuable, even if his basic thesis should be untenable.

A second phase of the argument developed when students of specific Asian religionsfound counterparts to a Protestant ethic, rationality, profit-seeking motivation, hard work,and thrift, entrepreneurial groups, bureaucratic organization, in these religions and soci-eties. 1 Some of these counterparts were indigenous, and some were imports from the out-side, but their presence, it may be argued, should either trigger the kinds of changes thatcame with European industrial capitalism or cast doubt on the general validity of Weber' sthesis. Weber was too thorough a scholar to have overlooked the presence of these counter-parts to Protestantism and rationality in Asian religions. He notes and discusses many ofthem, but he did not give them much weight, either in his ideal typical construction or inhis assessment of their influence on everyday conduct. The trend of social and religiouschange in the last fifty years compels us to revise some of Weber' s interpretations of theimportance of these counterpart elements.

Robert Bellah' s paper, in the symposium on "Psycho-Cultural Factors in Asian EconomicGrowth, "' opens a third phase of the Weber argument; he writes that it is not the mere pres-ence of this or that component of motivations, institutional arrangements, or entrepreneurialgroup that constitutes a proper analogy to the Protestant ethic in Asia. The analogy must belooked for, he suggests, in the transformation of the basic structure of a society and in itsunderlying value-system. Such a transformation is really what Weber was analyzing in theEuropean case, according to Bellah. And the problem is to find out whether a similar trans-formation is taking place in Asia. Rapid economic growth is not an automatic index of its

* A review article of K. William Kapp, Hindu Culture, Economic Development and Economic Planning In India.New York: Asia Publishing House, 1963, 228 pp. First presented at the meeting of the American Sociological Associa-tion, Los Angeles, August 1963. I am grateful to Elizabeth Nottingham and Robert Bellah for helpful comments.1. See the references cited in R. Bellah, "Reflections on the Protestant Ethic Analogy in Asia," Journal of Social Issues,XIX, No. 1 (1963), 53, note 2.2. Edited by Manning Nash and Robert Chin for Journal of Social Issues, XIX, No. 1 (1963), 52-60.

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498 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL CHANGEoccurrence, for in the case of Japan, where economic growth has been rapid, Bellah findsthat Japanese intellectuals feel strongly that the transformation is far from completed. Healso cites recent studies, using the "structural approach, " of religious movements and re-formulations in Indonesia, Ceylon, and India, which tend to support social reform, but heis not prepared to say whether the social consequences of these movements and reformu-lations will add up to a total structural transformation.

Since Bellah was himself a major contributor to the second phase argument with hisTokugawa Religion, we may suppose his own investigations compelled him to go beyondthis phase into a third phase, where the total structural and ideological transformation ofa society becomes the problem for investigation. Such a reformulation of the Weberianthesis has much to be said for it: the entire discussion is thus brought into the broaderperspective of the analysis of social and cultural change. At the same time, this shiftcan easily lead to a loss of specificity and cogency. Instead of considering a specifickind of religious ideology which may or may not affect economic development, we are nowasked to consider total ideological and structural transformations, designated as "mod-ernization, " within which economic development and some kind of "Protestant ethic" mayor may not be associated.

Considered as a prelude to investigations of actual instances of "modernizing" trans-formations in social and cultural context, this third phase of the Weber discussion is mostwelcome. Intellectual traditions, however, no less than social traditions, have a way ofpersisting into new eras and resisting displacement by innovation. Specifically, I wonderwhether phase one and two of the Weber thesis will not continue to haunt the discussionsof phase three. It might be desirable to abandon the earlier phases and to formulate theproblems of the relation of religion to social change in more general terms as a problem insocial and cultural transformation. I do not think, however, that the earlier foundationswill be so easily sloughed off. They are likely, on the contrary, to turn up as sources of"distortion" in the more general discussion.One of these "distortions" is the risk of using Weber's thesis as a basis for quickdiagnoses of the ideological and structural factors inpeding or facilitating economic de-

velopment, and then translating such diagnoses into policy recommendations for far-reachingtransformations. This would short-circuit the careful research and analysis necessary tovalidate any theory of social and cultural change. Another less obvious "distortion" wouldbe to confuse Weber' s ideal-typical definitions of the comprehensiveness and complete-ness of the ideological and social system and their transformation with the ideologies de-veloped by leading reformers and intellectuals. Bellah, e.g., speaks of "Japaneseintellectuals who feel as acutely as Weber did the failure of modern Japan to carry throughcertain critical structural transformations which are associated with modern society. "Surely not all Japanese intellectuals and reformers share Weber' s definition of modernsociety or of what would constitute a complete transformation. I assume that in Japan, aselsewhere, there is a wide spectrum of opinion on these questions, and that these varyin their effects on the course of events. Bellah or any other investigator is free to sim-plify and abstract from such variability in his ideal typical constructions, but once havingmade his constructions, he is not free from the consequences of his definitions. If hemakes his constructions too simple and abstract, his analysis may fail to have relevanceand realistic consequences for the society he wishes to study.

These remarks are not intended to characterize or to criticize Bellah' s application ofphase three of the Weber thesis to Japan. That application has yet to appear, and whenit does, it may avoid the pitfalls noted. For those of us interested in the application ofWeber' s thesis to Asian religions, however, there remains the dilemma of how to combinethe specificity of Weber's thesis with a general analysis of the social and cultural trans-formations involved in modernization. The latter requires the narrative and descriptive


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SINGER 499approach of the historian and anthropologist, whereas the former moves in the hypothet-ical realm of ceterus paribus reasoning of the economist. Perhaps the two kinds ofapproaches will eventually complement one another. In the studies of religion and socialchange in India, where discussion also seems to be entering phase three, we have atleast one recent example of the application of the Weber thesis in the perspective of ageneral analysis of social and cultural change: K. W. Kapp's Hindu Culture, EconomicDevelopment and Economic Planning in India. A consideration of this example willillustrate how difficult it is to prevent the earlier phases of the Weber discussion fromintruding into phase three.

Kapp follows Weber in conceiving of Hinduism as a particular set of beliefs and val-ues articulated with a particular set of social institutions. The beliefs and values in-clude a belief in rebirth; in the law of karma, linking actions in a past life to presentrewards, and present actions to a future life; in cyclical time; in the supremacy of thevalues of release and duty over profit and pleasure; in the ideal of non-violence as anexpression of the doctrine of the oneness of life; and in asceticism and austerity as endsin themselves. The major social institutions included are the caste system, the jointfamily, and the village.

Kapp seeks to systematize this conception of Hinduism by reference to the anthro-pological concept of culture, which he interprets as "a generalized image of behaviorfrom which, in fact, it is inferred" and as "those uniformities of behavior which find ex-pression in an essential core of traditional (i. e. historically derived and selected) ideas,beliefs, concepts, and values which are acquired in the course of a prolonged processof enculturation and are transmitted by symbols" (p. 7). Although Kapp' s interpretationof the culture concept conforms to the usage of many anthropologists, his applicationdoes not follow the usual anthropological method for arriving at a characterization of aparticular culture. He has obviously selected those features of Indian culture which hebelieves are most relevant to economic development, has taken them to define "HinduCulture, " and has then tried to relate them causally to an equally selectively defined"Hindu Social System" and a "Hindu Personality. " He has, in other words, followedthe hypothetico-deductive method of the economist, rather than the inductive generali-zation more commonly used by the anthropologists.

Kapp postulates certain general characteristics of "Hindu Culture, " such as beliefin cyclical time and in cosmic causation, and then tries to derive, more or less deduct-ively, a series of consequences which are significant for economic development. Thebelief in cyclical time and in cosmic causation, e. g., lead, in his opinion, to increasedfeelings of helplessness; to fatalism and reliance on magic and astrology; to mysticism,contemplation, and withdrawal; to a denial that history, social reform, and economicdevelopment depend on human will and social action; and to the belief that human ex-istence is transitory, illusory, and unimportant. Hindu metaphysics, as Kapp interpretsit, "thus stands in the way of the emergence of one basic prerequisite of economic de-velopment, namely, the conviction that man does make his own history" (p. 43).

Kapp does not demonstrate that such consequences follow logically, psychologically,or culturally from these metaphysical beliefs. Nor are there any empirical studies citedto show that Hindus who profess such beliefs have become fatalistic and other-worldlyand as a result do not arrive on time for appointments, have a high frequency of absencesfrom their jobs, do not work hard, cannot save or invest their savings, do not know howto organize their lives according to methodical schedules, lack a drive for achievementand mastery of this world-in short, do not have those character traits which modernEuropean capitalists were supposed to have derived from a Protestant ethic.We do not have the empirical studies that begin to give us definite and quantitative

information about the distribution of these traits among Indians. The few scattered studies


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500 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL CHANGEthat have been made indicate that many Hindus do work hard, save, invest, try to improvetheir position, discipline their behavior in the most exacting ways, and arrive on timefor appointments. 3 These very same people may also believe in karma and in mysticismand have a fatalistic attitude toward their own condition. A very successful Brahminindustrialist I interviewed in Madras not only professed all the character traits of the"capitalistic spirit" (do your job well; don't be lazy and waste time; depend on yourself,not on others' charity; be truthful; use your wealth for the community, and not for self-enjoyment; and don't harm others), but he also regarded these maxims as an ethical codedefining the essentials of Hinduism. Asceticism, he said, was a matter of mental atti-tude: he could be an ascetic sitting right in his office, by putting more in than he tookout. He did not believe in birth as a basis for choice of occupation, because childrenhad different ambitions from their fathers, and the conditions they would have to facewould be different, too. He also believed in hiring the best qualified man for the job,mixed castes freely in his offices and factories, and expected intercaste marriages tobecome more common, as the disparities in ways of life among different castes decreased.Yet this industrialist considered himself a good Hindu, was active in Hindu philanthropies,and was a staunch supporter of the leaders of orthodox Hinduism in South India. He alsobelieved in karma and rebirth: when I asked him whether, if reborn, he would preferanother occupation to business, he replied that he might not have much choice, sincecertain things followed from past actions.

This industrialist epitomizes the difficulties in trying to relate Hindu metaphysicsto economic development, not because he is a common type-although there are probablymany more Hindus of this type than is generally supposed- but because he demonstrateshow a successful, energetic, entrepreneur may at the same time be a good, believingHindu. If his belief in karma and his fatalistic attitude have not prevented him fromworking hard and effectively; why should it prevent others ? Perhaps there is a fallacyin assuming that a belief in karma creates a man's condition, whereas it only "explains"and "justifies" it. Whatever a man can or cannot do he may explain by reference to alaw of karma but this explanation does not determine what he will or will not do. Ifa farmer's crops fail, he may invoke karma but if they prosper he will also invoke it,so the belief in karma need not act as a discourager of effort and enterprise, althougha crop failure may well do so. It is generally those who have worked hard and have ex-perienced misfortune who may find the appeal to karmic law most satisfactory as an ex-planation, but the belief is equally available to those who work hard and succeed. Andit would be interesting to know whether it is actually used more often to explain failurethan to explain success.

Two leading official interpreters of orthodox Hinduism in South India, the Sankaracaryaat Kanchi and the Sankaracarya in Sringeri, both insisted during interviews that a beliefin karma did not prevent a Hindu householder from the performance of his worldly dutiesor even, in the case of merchants, from the pursuit and accumulation of wealth. Bothpointed to past achievements of Hindus in building empires, trade, and cities as counter-evidence to the notion that Hinduism was excessively other-worldly in its effects.Kapp himself notes that if Hindu metaphysics and moral theory were as other-worldlyas he suggests, "Indian civilization could hardly have survived" (p. 17). But insteadof using this consideration to question his interpretation, he concludes instead that thereis "a paradoxical coexistence in one culture system of contradictory value orientationsand actual behaviour patterns" (p. 18).

3. McCrory, Small Industry in a North Indian Town; J. J. Berna, Industrial Entrepreneurship in Madras State (New York,1960); R. D. Lambert, "The Social and Psychological Determinants of Savings and Investments in Developing Society,"in B. F. Hoselitz and W. E. Moore, eds., Industrialization and Society (UNESCO, 1963); and D. M. McClelland, TheAchieving Society (1961), pp. 217-18, 271-73, 378-81, 413-14.


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SINGER 501On prima facie grounds, one could make a pretty plausible case for the thesis thatHindu metaphysics should produce just those kinds of "character" and "character traits"which Weber regarded as necessary for a modern industrial society: a belief in an or-

derly universe subject to deterministic laws; the ability to anticipate a course of eventsand to behave accordingly, with the possibility of control based on knowledge; a strongsense of responsibility for one's actions and their consequences; and a capacity to or-ganize one' s life under a systematic methodical discipline which will maximize the goalsone has set oneself. It is also plausible to argue, as I have elsewhere, that these sec-ular character traits are given a religious and transcendental sanction, not unlike thatof a Protestant ethic, in the Bhagavat Gita and in other Hindu scriptures. And there isevidence, as I have suggested, for the actual existence of devout Hindus who manifestthese traits in different roles and occupations-business, industry, farming, government,education, religion, and elseWvhere.4

But I do not think that such a prima facie argument is any more conclusive than theopposite argument, which holds that Hindu metaphysics cannot produce a "capitalisticspirit" in a good Hindu. My scepticism about both arguments does not rest on those re-fined rebuttals which urge that the profit motive among Asians is not really like the pro-fit motive among Europeans; that the Asian ascetic's discipline is not really "rational;"or that if there is any Protestant ethic in Asian religions, it must have been importedfrom the West; etc., etc. It is rather two limitations of the hypothetico-deductive useof ideal types which arouse my skepticism. In the first place, I do not believe we candeduce realistic consequences from basic beliefs, values, ormotives postulated in iso-lation from concrete social and cultural contexts. The influence of such beliefs, values,and motives on behavior depends on what they mean in a particular context, and this inturn depends on how particular actors in that context define the situation. Talcott Par-sons has recently pointed out5 that one serious weakness in Weber' s method was histendency to reify single motives, like the profit motive, into atomistic traits linked torigid ideal types, and that in this tendency he was probably influenced by the facultypsychology of classical utilitarianism and classical economics, which in turn was in-fluenced, I believe, by classical mechanics. Unfortunately for this analogy, so far associal science is concerned, classical physics did not have to worry about how any par-ticular collection of billiard balls would apply the laws of motion in their particular situa-tion. Followers of Weber, especially among some economists and some psychologists,seem not to have taken this difficulty seriously, although it has been a commonplaceamong sociologists and anthropologists for the last thirty or forty years. The latterwould not, I think, ask such questions as whether Hindus have a generalized profit mo-tive, or a need for achievement, or are rational, etc., but would rather ask how theseand other motives and beliefs function in particular kinds of specified situations, andwhy they function as they do. There is no doubt, e. g., that Indians have, as do otherpeople, the generalized capacity to anticipate future events-near, remote, or inter-mediate-and tend to act in the present in the light of such anticipations. We cannot,however, explain by reference to such a generalized capacity why particular classes ofpeople will save for a daughter's dowry and others for starting a new business. Nor willthe postulation of such a capacity explain the failure of other classes of people to an-ticipate the consequences of their decisions, say, to have children. These are specificlinkages of present and future behavior which are connected not only by a generalizedcapacity to anticipate consequences of present action, but by specific kinds of customs,4. M. Singer, "Cultural Values in India's Economic Development," Annals of the American Academy of Political andSocial Science CCCV (1956), pp. 81-91; review of M. Weber, The Religion of India; The Sociology of Hinduism andBuddhism, in American Anthropologist, LXIII (1961), 143-51; "The Great Tradition in a Metropolitan City: Madras,"in Traditional India: Structure and Change (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1959); and "The RadhakrishnaBhajans of Madras City," in History of Religions, II (1963).5. Introduction to Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), pp. lxiii-lxvii.


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SINGER 503On the basis of their analysis of the alleged retarding effects of caste, faction-alism, the joint family, personality structure, and metaphysics, the Kapps find Hinduculture in open conflict with "a secularized society and the scientific temper. " The

great transformation from traditional to modernized industrial societies which wasfacilitated by secularization in Europe has not yet taken place in India, they argue."India has never experienced the religious, political, scientific, intellectual and tech-nological reorientation which prepared the West for the intellectual, agrarian and in-dustrial revolutions of the last centuries" (p. 62). The many movements of social andreligious reform in Indian history are dismissed as insignificant and as never havingsuccessfully challenged the "underlying principles" of the caste system and of Hindumetaphysics. For the Kapps, "the ultimate measure of secularization and moderniza-tion" must be "the abandonment of the concepts of cyclical time and cosmic causationand their replacement by the notions of linear historical time and natural (physical)laws" (p. 63).

This reading of Indian history in itself and vis-a-vis European history is not likelyto find approval from scholars of Indian social and cultural history. These scholarswould not, of course, urge an exact parallelism with European history. On the otherhand, their studies certainly would not support the Kapps' assumption that there is anunchanging standard of Hindu orthodoxy in Indian history, defined by definite principlesof social organization and theological belief. The identification, moreover, of such anorthodoxy with the persistent core of Indian culture would be rejected generally by rep-resentatives of Jain, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, animist, and secularist In-dians. It would also be rejected by representatives of many Hindu sects and philosoph-ical schools, each of which has its own version of what constitutes "orthodox Hinduism. "The variety of belief and practice within Hinduism has been so great that it is safe tosay that there are probably Hindus who hold the position which the Kapps characterize.It would be premature, however, to conclude, without further empirical investigation,that this is in any sense a dominant position. Every single belief or practice in Hinduismhas probably been regarded as "unessential" by some Hindu group at some time and hasas a consequence been modified or abandoned. This is not necessarily "secularization, "since what survives this process may still contain a heavy load of religious belief andpractice. There are also groups who have rejected Hinduism in toto to convert to anotherreligion, as in the case of Indian Christians or Buddhists, or to adopt "rationalist" and"secularist" ideology. Whether it has occurred within the Hindu fold or outside it, theprocess of social and cultural change in Indian civilization is far too manifold to be sub-sumed under one particular definition of "orthodox Hinduism. "7

I would also question Kapp' s denial of significant secularization in Indian culture.The most recent and comprehensive study, India as a Secular State, by Donald EugeneSmith, concludes that India is a secular state, and that "while it is far too early to dis-miss the possibility of a future Hindu state, " the possibility does not appear to be astrong one and that the secular state has "far more than an even change of survival inIndia" (p. 501).8

The conflict which Kapp finds between Hindu metaphysics and the outlook and tem-per of European science also seems to me exaggerated. Far from being "unscientific, "the beliefs in cyclical time and in cosmic causality are closer to the dominant modesof European scientific thought than is the world view and cosmology of the Bible. AsA. L. Kroeber has pointed out, most sciences did not seriously begin to develop alinear historical approach until the middle of the eighteenth century. 9 Previous to this7. For an alternative approach to the problem of defining Hinduism, see M. Singer, "Text and Context in the Study of Con-temporary Hinduism," Adyar Library Bulletin, XXV (1961), 274-303.8. Princeton University Press, 1963.9. A. L. Kroeber, "Evolution, History, and Culture," in Sol Tax, ed., The Evolution of Man, Mind, Culture and Society

(Chicago, 1960).


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504 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CULTURAL CHANGEthe dominant models were in terms of deterministic cycles. In fact, the prestige andinfluence of these models was not challenged until the physicists in the twentiethcentury began to discover some limitations to deterministic causality in quantum me-chanics. There is less conflict in modes of thought between the deterministic causalityof European science and the cosmic cycles of Hindu metaphysics than there has been be-tween European science and European religion and philosophy. An American physicist ex-tends this even to the latest developments in modern physics. He says that "the Samkhyatheory is in absolute agreement with the latest results of modern physics, " and that "thethought processes of the Western philosopher are such that he is antagonistic to thephysicist whereas the Hindu philosopher is sympathetic. "'10

The Kapps assert that, so long as Indians believe in cyclical time and in cosmiccausality, they will be tempted to appeal to supernatural forces and to propitiate occultpowers, instead of relying on their own strength and the application of natural laws(p. 63). This seems to imply that a belief in natural laws has displaced appeals tosupernatural forces and occult powers in the West. I wonder whether this is really so.Has not the development of a scientific world view in the West followed the same pro-cess of "agglomeration" that the Kapps say is characteristic of culture change in India ?It has been added to the "pre-scientific" world views of religion, philosophy, andpopular belief, rather than accepted as a replacement for "pre-scientific" world views.

In India, the coexistence of different levels of belief and practice is well known.The belief in cyclical time has not prevented philosophers such as Radhakrishnan orAurobindo from developing linear one-cycle philosophies,"1 or ordinary people fromthinking of the Kali age as a linear progression, or scientists and doctors from wearingamulets. Why should not a similar coexistence of different kinds of world view anddifferent levels of belief and practice be found in the West as well ? These questionsare still largely in the area of speculation and preconception and are just beginning tobe investigated empirically. In the meantime, the burden of proof that a belief in cy-clical time and cosmic causation is "pre-scientific", and destroys confidence and in-centive in daily effort, rests on those who assert that this is indeed so.I have given so much attention to Hindu metaphysics, because, for Kapp, this isboth the essence of Hindu culture and the greatest obstacle to modernization. I should

mention, however, that his study also includes some discussion of Hindu social or-ganization and personality as factors in economic development. The retarding effectof these factors is traced chiefly to their conjoint operation, with the alleged debili-tating effects of the metaphysics. His conclusions as to diagnosis and policy refer toboth cultural and non-cultural factors: "In the light of the results of our analysis itcan hardly be doubted that Hindu culture and Hindu social organization are determiningfactors in India's slow rate of development" (p. 64). His policy recommendations areequally unequivocal: "A lasting solution of the problem of economic development canbe found only by a gradual but systematic transformation of India's social system, ofher world outlook, and levels of personal aspirations" (p. 65).It is noteworthy, however, that these conclusions are not based on empirical stud-ies of the Hindu "world view" and its functional relations to social organization and

personality. They seem rather to represent hypothetical projections onto Indian societyand culture of the kinds of connections between religious ideas, values, and behaviorpostulated in the Weber thesis. As such, they may of course be taken as working hy-potheses to guide further empirical studies. Until these studies are available, it isperhaps best to state the conclusions as the results of a hypothetico-deductive analysis,rather than apodictically.10. J. Kaplan, in Swami Prabhavananda, The Spiritual Heritage of India (New York, 1963), pp. 214, 215.11. Grace E. Cairns, Philosophies of History (NewYork, 1962).


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SINGER 505There is nothing wrong with using a hypothetico-deductive approach to cultural andsocial analysis. Weber's ideal types seems to be but a special extension of it, and itis perhaps the most appropriate method for exploring the consequences of a designated

hypothesis. It would not appear to be very well suited, however, for arriving at gen-eralizations intended to characterize the uniformities underlying the diversities of par-ticular social and cultural systems. By saying that he is using it for the latter purpose,Kapp lays himself open to the charge of presenting a stereotyped picture of Indian cul-ture and of Indian society drawn from preconceptions, rather than from specific empiri-cal studies. He anticipates and tries to disarm such criticism by arguing that his conceptof culture must simplify and abstract from regional and sub-cultural variations, and thatindividual cases which do not conform to his generalized picture are not really relevantfor his analysis (pp. 7-8).This would be a good defense, if "the generalized picture" were presented as a

hypothetical, postulated set of characteristics, the consequences of which remain to beconfirmed or disconfirmed by specific observations. It is not a very good defense, if the"generalized picture" is presented as a body of generalizations presumably verified byobservations drawn from the full range of Indian culture, society, and personality. Theproblematic character of Kapp' s study springs from the fact that his method is hypothetico-deductive, while his conclusions are apodictic. He has presented a collection of plaus-ible speculations, here and there supported by an empirical study or a telling observation,as if it were a collection of proven generalizations from which far-reaching policy de-cisions should be drawn.

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7 - Religion India