ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a tentative approach to conceptualization of "total" in India and China, and analyses tradition and transformation in these societies in the context of that totality. In sociological paradigms, both Marxist and Weberian, the inner structure is derived from a conceptualization of social reality that generally presupposes a threefold differentiation: of society from polity, of polity from religion, and of religion from society. The deities of the Indus valley civilization uncovered by archaeological discoveries seem to suggest the existence of social differentiation between the male and female forms as objects of worship; there seems to be no evidence of any political impingement on their divine status. The first reformist effort occurred in the process of institutionalizing the form of tradition itself. Having emerged in the context of Vedic and Chou crises, the Upanishadic and the Confucian protests established the initial normative orientation of these traditions.
