ABSTRACT
India also formed a unique rationalism, one that contrasted sharply to Western rationalism. Central was the symbiotic relationship between the caste order, the Brahmins, and Hinduism. Weber also stresses in his analysis the traditional “spirit” of the caste order, the traditional economic ethic of Hinduism and the caste order, the traditional types of rulership and law, and the restriction in India of city development. Substantive conditions for the development of modern capitalism were lacking.
India’s ancient and medieval rationalism, Weber concludes, supported strongly the endurance of “organic traditionalism” and opposed severely Western rationalism’s “structural heterogeneity.” Again, as also evident in his analysis of China’s rationalism, Weber’s discussion – unlike in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism volume – of India’s rationalism emphasizes a variety of causal groups.
