ABSTRACT
The Socialist ideas of a new economic order of human society and Socialism's concern with the material and social conditions of man contradict the Hindu belief in the vanity of human existence. In contrast to the Marxist's 'state Socialism', sarvodaya Socialism has been defined by Jayaprakash Narayan as a 'people's Socialism'. Yet the nationalist revolution had also aroused their social consciousness. However, Socialism in Asia received its impetus from economic as well as from nationalist imperatives. Socialism in Asia, as an idea and a movement, emanated from the nationalist revolution of its peoples. Yet, even so, the people and government of a Buddhist country were able to pledge themselves constitutionally to establish a Socialist order of society, founded on the solidarity of the people. Buddhism is hardly touched by the Hindu concept of caste; the Buddhist monasteries include members of every caste as well as outcasts in their monastic communities.
