 Professor Rumila Tappar does not really need an introduction. That is obvious. As also of more than 20 influential books and countless academic papers and essays, some of them on Max Weber, she's globally recognized as one of the most significant academics and public intellectuals of India today. After graduating at Punjab University, Rumila Tappar was trained at SOAS. In 1955, she completed a BA Honours Degree, Branch 3 with Ancient Indian History. And in 1958, she was awarded a PhD for her work on Ashoka and the decline of the Maurias, published in 1961, which was supervised by Professor A. L. Basham. Her link with SOAS continued ever since. She taught for temporary periods in 1959 and 1967, gave many keynote lectures and was made an honorary fellow of SOAS in 1992. She first taught at Delhi University from 1963 but spent the longest time at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she was involved in the creation of the Center for Historical Studies in 1971, when the university was founded. She's currently Professor Emerita of History at the JNU. Professor Tappar was elected President of the Indian History Congress in 1983, corresponding fellow of the British Academy in 1999, and was awarded the Kluge Prize by the Library of Congress in the USA in 2008. These are just a few of the many, many honours and achievements. Her work has been in ancient Indian history in the historiographical writing in early India and in the way the Indian present uses the past. It is a great honour that Professor Tappar agreed to accept our invitation to give the keynote lecture of our conference at the occasion of the double hundreds university celebrations of SOAS and of Max Weber study on Hinduism and Buddhism. I'm delighted to welcome her on behalf of us all. Professor Flugel, Professor Winster and friends. 40 years ago, I read the more commonly quoted writings of Max Weber. Having written my reaction to his views in a paper for a conference, I left it at that. I have never regarded myself as knowledgeable on Max Weber, nor am I a specialist in Indian religions, nor am I a sociologist. So I was pleasantly surprised, slightly amazed, therefore, at being invited to participate in a seminar to assess his views on Indian religions. Thank you very much for the invitation, though I must confess that I feel at the moment a little like what Daniel must have felt like in the lion's den. My present thoughts have been curled from recent rereadings of Weber on India and from a more firmly historical perspective. I recognize that Weber was not a historian, but he does examine the origins of the present as in his historical perspective on capitalism. Questioning some of his assertions about India has made me think further about why I sometimes disagree and sometimes agree with what he writes. This is always a useful exercise. My approach is essentially that of a historian. Given the constraint of time this evening, I shall restrict myself to Weber's comments on Hinduism and leave those on Buddhism to the conference. I am assuming also a familiarity on your part with his arguments, so I do not have to repeat them. I shall merely draw attention to some current views that have a bearing on these. Weber's idea of India, especially of its past, was largely the one that was prevalent in Europe a century ago. This was to be expected, but these ideas have since altered substantially. This naturally would affect theories of explanation both then and now. Whereas his studies of Europe are analytical and present new ways of examining the subject, his study of India, by contrast, conforms in the main to much of colonial writing, possibly because he had to rely largely on colonial writing on India. This has its inbuilt limitations and there is an element of asymmetry, therefore, in his study of Europe and his study of India. A historian's perspective inevitably begins by placing the book in historiographical context and inquires about the sources consulted. Weber's sources were in the main documents that the British colonial government put together, such as census reports, the imperial gazetteers, the reports of Herbert Risley and such like. And added to this were the writings of Vincent Smith, Grant Duff, and Baden Powell. Weber also had recourse to various European orientalists, especially on Indian religions. His range of reading for this purpose remains very impressive. Our access today, however, is to a far greater range of sources and to their analytical readings and these provide different interpretations. A frequent assumption in much of the earlier writing was that the Orient was the other of Europe. It was legitimate to presume that India was fundamentally different and to ask why this was so. But the answers were limited as were the sources. Many theories of explanation were being discussed, including those of Marx and of Weber. Both drew attention to the absence of capitalism, but their explanations differed. Weber's question emerged from his theory that the Protestant ethic with its rationality was connected to the rise of capitalism in Europe. Therefore, the absence of this ethic in Indian religion might account for the absence of capitalism in India. Marx's explanation had to do with the internal contradictions in European society, subsequent to the decline of feudalism and the transition to capitalism. For both of them, the pre-capitalist histories of Europe and India were dissimilar, but for different reasons. Yet neither used the same analytical methods for investigating both areas. The reading of Indian history tended to be more cursory for a variety of reasons. Marx, however, did speak of colonialism in India and Ireland and drew attention to it in the making of British industrialization and capitalism. Weber gives little space to colonialism. Asia as the other was characterized by what was described essentially as Oriental despotism. Oriental societies were static. Their system of government had always been despotic. Therefore, to search for historical change seemed rather pointless. The past of India did not need to be investigated with searching questions, as had been the past of Europe. For understanding Europe, economic patterns, social structure, belief systems, and internal contradictions were correlated. This suggested well-demarcated stages of historical change. But less so for India. Weber's choice of the patrimonial state as applied to Indian history was perhaps not uninfluenced entirely by these notions of the Orient. The non-European past was used largely to sharpen, through contrast, the contours of the argument for Europe. In arguing that capitalism could not have developed in India, Weber showed relatively less focused interest in the 18th and 19th centuries of Indian history. Viewed as a civilizational unit, it had to be surveyed in its entirety. Nor was there a questioning of the role of colonialism as intervening both in the economy of the colony and of that of the colonizer. What might now be argued is that it is not perhaps so much the absence of capitalism, but the absence of a type of capitalism in what were some of the otherwise wealthy Asian societies. Economic historians of recent times, as well as those participating in the current debate on the world system theory, maintain that India and China were the preeminent economies in Eurasia in the immediately pre-colonial centuries. Their wealth came largely from what has been called mercantile capitalism with its extensive trading network. This would explain the power and the patronage of merchant businesses located in various parts of the country from the Jains in Gujarat to the Chettiers in Tamil Nadu. What was lacking was the change to industrial capitalism that took place in Northwestern Europe. In this, many factors played a role, not least that much of Southern Asia had been drawn into European colonialism during these centuries. Apart from all this, Weber's approach to Hinduism and Buddhism also drew in part from the prevailing concept of the world being divided into civilizations. These were viewed as distinct and segregated, defined by a specific territory, language, and religion, among other characteristics. For Indian civilization, the territory of British India was its location. It was articulated in Sanskrit and associated with Hinduism. Buddhism was less important having been discovered later and not having survived in India to modern times. Islam was ignored despite its obvious presence. Civilizations were seen as self-contained. The porosity that we associate with them now was not recognized in those days. The definition of civilization also excluded the larger part of society. This may have fueled Weber's distinction between the wise and educated and what he calls the uncultured masses. Keeping all this in mind, I would now like to turn to the religion of India. Written a century ago, it is of much historiographical interest. Some concepts of that time are now being questioned or are being given variant meanings. This applies as much to European history as to any other. The key questions in a reading of the religion of India, it seems to me, are whether the descriptions of Indian religion and society as projected by Weber are still largely valid and what are some of his ideas that might have been and could still be insightful. The essential problem that I have as a historian with Weber's views of India, as indeed those of Marx as well, is that they tend to be what I call context free and chronos free. What I mean by this is that there isn't enough awareness of the why, the how, and the when of the particular institutions being discussed. Some of these underwent substantial change over three millennia and virtually gave way to new ones. Some continued in a new garb. Weber argues for a nexus in Europe between the political economy of emergent capitalism and the religious form of the Protestant ethic. If this nexus is to be sought in India, then there has to be a comparable investigation of the political economy and its connection to the required religious ideas in order to determine the presence or absence of the nexus. The religions of India are described more often without much reference to the political economy with which they would have been linked. I would therefore like to consider a few aspects among those that Weber regards as distinctively different in India. These are the patrimonial state, caste, and religion. I would also like to see how the notion of legitimation is apparent in relation to these. Weber's view of particular kinds of states reflects in part the general interests at that time in defining the state, a general interest that existed among modern European philosophers. The patrimonial state, as applied to India, assumed the centralized control of the ruler to whom flowed all the revenues produced by the peasantry. Ensuring the flow was the responsibility of the administration, the producers of the wealth really had no right of refusal. This static condition implied an absence of historical change. The patriarchal family and caste were linked to the Indian state. The characteristics of the state were the cause of the endemic poverty of the Indian peasant at all times. It was a permanent condition because of the inability of either the administrators or the producers to change it. Today, this argument of a relatively uniform, unchanging state characterizing much of pre-colonial history would be regarded probably as ahistorical. The analysis of available data, as for instance for the 17th and 18th centuries, points to demography, the function of institutions, and technology being roughly comparable in India and Europe. Even prior to that, systems of governance do not suggest static conditions. Studies of state formation have shown that the state in India changed substantially in form and function over the centuries. Early elements of governance lay in the Ganasangha system of rudimentary kingship and chief ships, some of which gradually mutated into kingdoms. The Mauryan state, although different, would still be seen as a differentiated imperial system. Its administration was very complex, with some centrally administered areas and others less so in varying degrees. The breakup of the short-lived Mauryan empire was followed by a scatter of kingdoms. Their economies were based on direct revenue collection from both privately owned and state-owned lands, cultivated by tenants observing diverse kinds of tenancies, and revenue also came from commerce. Subsequent to this, in the post-Kupptap period, there were kingdoms, some large and some quite small, where the major states negotiated their authority with a hierarchy of intermediaries, referred to as Samantas, and later as Iktedars, Jagidars, Zamindars, and such like. Their powers and rights were negotiated in various ways according to dynasty and time. New dynasties emerged from their ranks, and at any point in time, the picture was not identical for the entire subcontinent. This is a question that comes up repeatedly as one generalizes about India. The state in Indian history was generally described in the 19th century as having had an essentially agrarian economy, other activities being marginal. Weber refers to India as a land of villages. This impression has been corrected in recent studies. Income at different levels of the economic hierarchy also came from an extensive commerce, both overland and maritime. This increased noticeably from the early second millennium AD with a growth in urbanization. The administration of cities hosting artisanal production, markets and commerce obviously differed from the administration of areas where land revenue was primary. There was a striking expansion in the number and size of guilds handling this change. This also affected their relationship to urban centers and political power. The functioning of the patrimonial state in India was said to rely on physical force and the administration, both very closely controlled. The figures for the Nanda Maurya army are mentioned by historians like Vincent Smith. They came from Greek sources and they are huge and probably exaggerated to justify Alexander's decision to discontinue his campaign. The numbers also vary fairly enormously from text to text, making them somewhat doubtful. More to the point, the economy even of the Mauryan state could not have financed such a large force. And apart from the regular army, contingents were recruited when required from various groups of mercenaries and from other resources such as the soldiers maintained by guilds. The peasants, it is said, were kept unarmed but the local village heroes of post-Mauryan times were well equipped. They defended their villages against cattle raiders and in local battles without the assistance of the king's army. These events are memorialized in a multitude of hero stones in many parts of the subcontinent. The patrimonial state assumes a small elite as recipients of the income produced by lower castes. However, we now know that the wealth was not siphoned off by the few but actually financed the many hierarchies in the system as well. The producers of the wealth did not consist of single castes but a range of castes with interlocked occupations. The culture of Jathis more than Varna's conditioned by occupation and customary law more often than not also determined their religious identity. To give greater weightage to Varna than to Jathi in studying caste misses out on some facets of how Indian society functioned. The noticeably rational Arthashastra of Kautilya, some people say almost cynically rational, refers to the seven limbs of the state. The army and the administration were two among the seven. The other five were the ruler, the territory, the capital, the treasury and allies. The ruler was required to integrate the functions of the seven and that is what gave him central importance. But when one looks at the process of integration in itself one realizes that this process was a curb on his power. There is also much evidence on the functioning of administration from detailed inscriptions of pre-modern times. Issued by local administrators they were inscribed in public places among other useful aspects of local activity. Some of these record major decisions regarding the powers and activities of civic office bearers. The decisions involve local communities, temple administrators and officers of the state. The communities can be upper caste Brahmin communities with their own privileges or wider communities of other occupational castes. The concerns refer to a number of activities including participation in various bodies of administration and particularly bodies deciding on specific taxes. At least for the castes above the level of artisans and peasants the system was not consistently oppressive. Nevertheless, there are occasional complaints against oppressive rulers. This resulted in peasants migrating to a neighboring kingdom, a reaction much dreaded by rulers we are told since it resulted in declining revenue. The Indian peasantry when disgruntled is associated with migration rather than rebellion possibly because land was more easily available. But there is evidence of rebellion and this evidence generally refers to the Samantas, the intermediary groups, sometimes referred to as feudatories but land owners nevertheless. There is the Kaivarta revolt in Bengal in the early second millennium AD, the Samantas leading the buffalo riding peasants against the king's forces. The aim was not only an objection to increased taxes but also to claim new lands for cultivation. The argument in the debate today is was it a peasant revolt or a revolt by the feudatories? Another situation occurred in Kashmir and is described at length by Kalhana in his Rajatarangani. Among the military organizations that were powerful in the area were the Tantrins and the Ekangas who were a serious threat to the power of the Damara feudatories and the rulers over a longish period of time. Such instances point to each of the three levels, the producers, the intermediaries and the state, having to negotiate their powers vis-a-vis each other. I am not arguing that there was no exploitation. I am not arguing that there was oppression. This was a given in most pre-modern societies. What is debatable is whether it was so severe as to support sustained despotism as was one of the colonial views. And we have to remember, of course, that the colonial perspective also had a political agenda. Kast had a regional identity but this did not restrict migrations. Learned Brahmans were in demand and were invited to settle in various parts of the subcontinent, legitimizing newly created kingdoms. Stone carvers and temple builders were mobile, judging by the stylistic similarities in distant places. Occupational castes such as weavers migrated from Gujarat in the west to Taimildadu in the south, attracted by the expanding textile trade from South India. Far from being only a land of villages, Indian traders were found in commercial centers across Asia and often associated with a monetary economy. Among the more wealthy traders were the Brahmans, some making large profits in the horse trade of the Northwest with Central Asia. And many in the South Indian Ayawole gills trading with Southeast Asia and associated with the Chola rulers. These gills were not crippled by caste as Weber maintains or by the king. They were political and economic pressure groups maintaining their own relations with royalty. In the Punjab, however, it was non-Brahman-Kathri traders who were the dominant caste for many centuries over and above even the status of the Brahmans. The most prestigious religious sect was founded by the Kathri leader, teacher Guru Nanak, who had distanced himself from Brahmanical Hinduism. Trade and commerce was not treated with odium as Weber maintains and many upper castes were in fact traders. Artisanal caste tended to be assertive perhaps because of the urban ambience. Production was central to the activities of such groups since it was not limited to local exchange but was frequently geared to the more extensive trade of distant markets. The bonds of belonging to a guild provided a firm identity. This often held even when the guild dispersed and its members took to other occupations as happened with the famous silk weavers of Mandasore. The bonding was useful when demands were made on the state. There are many records as for instance from the states of Rajasthan which refer to decisions taken by Jati Panchayats the caste councils similar to guilds and conveyed to both the local administration and the rulers. These could be for a remission of tax or a firm refusal to pay a newly imposed tax or to adjudicate over disputes involving money and land transfers. Civil law virtually required the state to accept the decision and advice of the Jati Panchayat. The state had to agree to their terms. Artisanal production controlled by merchants and guilds was crucial to maintaining an ongoing economy especially in the period just preceding colonialism. The politics of patronage was not just a simple matter of the ruler bestowing wealth on a recipient. It involved a careful assessment of the status and authority of the community, its economic potential and its religious affiliations. This in part accounts for the fact that individual rulers often patronized more than one religious set and frequently sets that were in opposition to each other. This patronage could change from king to king in a dynasty. Weber's study of the religion of India rightly discusses both caste and religion but the significant link between the two remains somewhat elusive or fails to get fully connected. Colonial definitions of caste tend to give more space to Varna than to Jati. Given the origin of Varna, it was assumed that the caste Hindus would take it as divinely sanctioned and unalterable. Besides where a large unchanging society is assumed, there was little need to recognize change in the functioning of caste. But change is recorded. The conversion of non-caste to caste registering its recruitment is interestingly discussed by Weber. As has been noted by sociologists, this process hints at some similarity with what was more recently called Sanskritization. This involved lower castes imitating the lifestyle of the upper castes except of course that the former had to have the income to do so. One could ask whether the method of conversion to caste suggested a possible form of social mobility where a lower caste changing its occupation and rituals could be recruited into a higher caste. There was no need to wait until one's next birth. Or could some change in occupations become acceptable among upper castes such as Brahmins taking to trade in agriculture without losing caste. But the changes that took place behind the scenes as it were in Varna identity or the shifting in the hierarchies within jayatis over a period has been less noticed. If the model as given in the social codes of the Dharmashastras was subverted, although leaving the facade more or less intact, then the process of subversion has to be studied. Were those called Dalits today the untouchables of the past, the only permanent unchanging castes in Indian history? A century ago, statements of the Dharmashastras were taken by historians not only as norms, but on occasion as suggestive of how Hindu society actually functioned. Much of the discussion, therefore, came to be centred on the belief and practices of the upper castes. The religious practices of the lower castes, the sources for which were different, were often treated as ethnography. And these did not feature in most definitions of Hinduism until recent years. The Varnaasramdham of the Dharmashastras, observing the rules of caste, actions and rituals, embodied caste conservatism. However, new observances needed to be incorporated as and when required, although often maintaining that the format was still being observed. The Brahmans in performing rituals and in the pursuit of learning claimed the highest status with maximum purity. This, they stated, required them to be distanced from other castes and also to establish a segregated group, permanently excluded and treated as maximally impure, therefore untouchable. The purity of the Brahman, as it has been said, had its counterweight in the impurity of the untouchable Dalit. Yet the same Vedic society that discriminated against the Darsas as the inferior other did on occasion recruit the Dasiputraha Brahmans, the sons of low caste Darsas into the Brahman category and treat them with respect. From the late 1st millennium AD, the power of the Brahmans increased enormously. Large numbers of them received sizable amounts of land, donated to them as fees for performing rituals of legitimation or averting the evil effects of an eclipse. In newly opened areas, such donies became land owners. A new Brahmakshatra caste became prominent in association with these donies. The logic of the emergence of such a caste was very self-evident. The caste of Kayasth scribes who virtually monopolized administration in Northern India were interestingly given a Brahman-Shudra origin. They performed, in fact, many Brahmanical activities other than conducting rituals. Re-reading Weber on Indian religion has once again underlined questions in my mind. For Weber, the unifying feature of Hinduism was the theodicy of Karma and Sansar, actions in this birth leading to rebirth and particular kinds of rebirth in the next life. How central this was to all Hindus of every caste remains debatable. Heroes aspire to go to heaven, taken there by Apsaras, celestial maidens. The Shramana theodicies were naturally not identical to the Brahman. To pursue the theodicies of sect and caste might be more revealing than generalizing about Hinduism as a whole. A frequently discussed subject was renunciation. Some have argued that renunciation among both Hindus and Buddhists was life denying. However, unlike asceticism renunciation does not remove the person from society. It sets up an alternate society that the renouncer can join. Renouncers were not attempting a social revolution, but were providing an alternative way of life. Hinduism as a religion had a history of change, with perhaps a wider range of new forms than in other religions. This is perhaps one of the reasons why it is regarded as extremely complex. Vedic Brahmanism is taken as a start subsequent to the Harappan, historically. Its imprint has been viewed as continuous, but mainly for the Brahman. Its authority was challenged by the Sharmana religions such as Buddhism, Jainism and the Ajivikas. Dharma, translated as religion, came to be described as consisting of two streams, the Brahman and the Sharmana. The former was largely Vedic Brahmanism based on the sanctity of the Vedas, belief in deities, the immortality of the soul and the performance of sacrificial rituals. The Sharmanas denied this, drawing upon reason, causality and other factors. They were dismissed by the Brahman as nastika, non-believers. The relationship between the two, according to the grammarian Patanjali, is said to have been comparable to that of the snake and the mongoose without mentioning which was which. This duality and its interaction is continuously referred to in historical sources. Its juxtaposition was central to the idea of dharma. Yet few historians of Hinduism have investigated it as a duality. The link with caste would be clearer if we were to work out the caste differentiation of the sects individually rather than Hinduism as a whole. It would also force us not to see Hinduism as a single monolithic religion. The interface between Brahmans and Shramans would most likely prove insightful. Vedic Brahmanism was a religion of that caste. The majority followed variant forms of Hinduism in what is now referred to and differentiated from Vedic Brahmanism as Puranic Hinduism. Shiva and Vishnu superseded the earlier deities, were iconized and placed for the first time in temples and worship took the form of puja, simple offerings instead of elaborate sacrificial rituals. New deities regularly entered the pamphilm and the sects worshipping them had to be accommodated in the caste hierarchy. The latest I think was in the last century, Santoshima. Because of these changes, the Dharmashasras of the second millennium AD had to then discuss burning questions, such as evaluating the status of the temple priest Vizavi that of the Veda knowing Brahman. Together with this was a parallel phenomenon of Bhakti and Shaktha teachers, which Veber refers to, founding many more new sects, spanning a range of variant beliefs. Communities could choose whom to worship and how. And in this context, the coming of Islam increased the number of sects and the range of religious ideas. Some sects disapproved of caste altogether like the Kabir Panthis. Others became castes like the Lingayats. And many of these sects conformed neither to Islam nor to Hinduism. They tended to have fuzzy edges and some blurred overlaps. The next mutation in the religion came, or the religions that some prefer to call it, came in the 19th century in the various samajas of the upper caste middle class. They accepted the colonial interpretation of Indian society and adopted ways of adjusting Hindu belief and practice to the processes of modernization. Reforms were an effort to standardize the religion, but the upper caste remained in authority. It was a concession to the colonial definition of Hinduism as a monolithic religion rather than a range of religious sects. The new authority of the upper caste had its counterpoint, however, in the surfacing of a variety of anti-Brahman movements as reform movements. Historically, Hinduism seems to have been consistently a duality starting with the contradiction between the Brahman and the Shraman. Attends to conform to the format required legitimizing these changes. Weber's study of legitimacy has been helpful in understanding this process. We have begun to recognize the forms it took and why. Social conformity was important to patronage. One form of claiming royal status was through genealogies. Birth established caste identity and some genealogical evidence was required for claims to status. The late 1st millennium AD saw what the Purans call the making of new Kshatriya castes. The Brahman authors of the Purans maintained that most of the earlier dynasties had been Shudra or of low Mlech origin. The social codes preferred that rulers should be Kshatriyas. So, many post-Kukta rulers claimed Kshatriya status irrespective of their original caste. Vedic rituals became increasingly symbolic. The Kshatriya ruler preferred supporting new rituals such as being reborn from a golden womb in order to claim status. Elaborate genealogies had to be fabricated linking these families through a myth with the Kshatriya clans of the epics. A section in the inscriptions called Prashastis eulogies of the dynasty and king provided the approved caste origin and indicate one process of legitimation. Controlling this process gave the Brahman's increased fresh power. Were the social codes ever actually treated as the blueprint for the entire society and recommended for all times? This becomes rather complicated given that caste was not irrelevant to the other religions of the subcontinent which of course is an aspect of caste that is not discussed by many. Caste was recognized among conversions to Islam and Christianity. Catholic Brahmans to this day are particular about their status in Goa and Syed Muslims keep their distance from the Jolahas. Claims to purity were replaced by claims to origins. Caste status, especially if low, was carried over into the new religion. For the Dalits there was virtually no change given that Islam, Christianity and Sikhism all maintain a strict exclusion and I think that this is a telling comment on caste and religion. The genealogical fantasy of caste in one situation contrasts with its continuing reality in the other. I would like to conclude by suggesting that Weber's arguments may have been purposefully comparative had he worked on a detailed study of the same approximate time period in India as in Europe. Capitalism is a modern phenomenon and the focus could well have been on the second half of the second millennium. This would have been prior to the possible rise of industrial capitalism or to a Protestant type ethic. If the link is to be investigated elsewhere other than in Europe, both the type of economy and the religious ethic and their causal relationship would have to be interrogated. An alternative question could be that if both conditions were present then would such a change be inevitable? If it still didn't happen then a further possible question is whether capitalism in India was diverted by colonialism. I'm also a little mystified that in his search for rationality in the Indian tradition Weber mentions but only in passing Indian thought on logic, mathematics, linguistics, astronomy, medicine. These were areas of Brahmanical Buddhist Islamic interaction. The leading centres were in Asia a change between Arab, Indian and Chinese scholars with the Arab scholars familiar with Greek scholarship. This continued until the 15th century or so. Given the similarity of investigations in Europe and Asia what prevented Asia from taking the particular leap in knowledge taken by Europe at that time? This seems to me is an interesting question and surely more was required than the Protestant ethic. A focus on investigating the immediately pre-colonial period would perhaps have enabled Weber to study more precisely the facets that he was drawing on. Were there elements of capitalism that might have been present? A subject that is central to other debates on the transition to capitalism? Did colonialism obstruct the emergence of industrial capitalism? And what held back the strands of a Protestant type ethic from becoming more visible and active if it existed? This may have provided a more precise background to ascertaining the degree to which there could have been a Protestant ethic as for instance amongst the James who according to Weber had a potential. Or it might also have revealed significant variance in the Indian situation pointing to alternative ways to the capitalist path. Every society after all does not think and act in an identical way. The problem with theories of explanation in the social sciences is that they are shaped by the times in which they are formulated. As more data flows in the formulations change but the significant ones do provide leads to analyzing the new data sometimes in the light of the old. Some of Weber's theories may now be set aside. However whilst assessing them new ideas have surfaced and certainly that has been my experience and the leads that he provided us with can be useful as initial questions in current research. By way of speculation may I end by suggesting that one could ask that if Weber was writing in 2016 instead of 1916 how would he have seen the religion of India? Thank you.