audiobook Print and Power Confucianism; Communism and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam by Shawn Frederick McHale in History

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The most interesting characteristic of ancient India was the evolution of a social organism for preserving and protecting the heritage; adapting it to new conditions and transmitting it to posterity. The factors of this organism were bound to each other by the one consideration of service and self-sacrifice. The fighting classes ensured the defence of the cultural citadel of Dharma; developed their resources in its behalf; and shed their blood in its defence. The vast multitude tilled the soil; conducted the carrying trade and shaped nature’s materials to subserve the ends of man. In India they did not; as did similar classes elsewhere; turn themselves into unthinking machines of economic production. They were saved from such a catastrophe by the very system of their daily life; communal and domestic ceremonies; and social institutions. They co-operated in the building of the cultural edifice by sacrificing part of their material resources for the common weal; so as to relieve from working for daily bread the class of people consecrated to culture. 2002 / New Delhi : Cosmo / 6 vols.; 1888pp. / HB