ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the implications for or against equality in the basic tenets of the religion, the ethics, and the social organization of Hinduism. It analyzes the views of social critics and reformers on aspects of the social organization where social relations were directly affected by the inequalitarian principles. The fact that the religious system remained detached, to a large extent, from the social organization facilitated Hindu acceptance of criticism and reforms toward social equality in recent years. Hindu ethical doctrine combined religious individuality and the concept of an organized and stratified society. Hinduism puts extraordinary emphasis on religious experience of the individual. The Hindu tolerance of other religions was due to its absence of social commitments, on the one hand, and its philosophy of relativistic truth, on the other. Because Hinduism regarded religion as a personal affair, it did not fail to recognize the same fact for other religions.
