4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST present. It has therefore a historical context which is as significant as the cultural form itself. The historical process is decisive to the definition of culture, yet the understanding of Indian culture is poorly served in this respect, for it is assumed that the historical process has a static interpretation and it has remained broadly unchanged over the last century, or that culture is a one-time event which has survived untampered with from the past to the present. From newspaper editors to prime ministers, everyone pronounces on the civilisation and culture of the Indian past unblushingly unconcerned with their historical basis. There are^ now, at least among historians, new kinds of analyses of cultural institutions and forms. Cultural history and its analysis juxtaposes the form with those who create it and those who order its creation and also attempts to see it as a social signal. The continuity of culture is generally related to traditions which in turn are made up of cultural forms. Tradition is defined as the handing do^n of knowledge or the passing on of a doctrine or a technique. Cultural history implies looking analytically both at what goes into the making of a tradition as well as that which is interpreted by historians a$ tradition. We often assume that a form is handed down in an unchanging fashion and that what comes to us is its pristine form. However, the sheer act of handing on a tradition introduces change and not every tradition is meticulously bonded by mnemonic or other devices to prevent interpolations or change. A tradition therefore has to be seen in its various phases. Even the concept of parampara which at one level appears to be frozen knowledge, reveals on investigation variations and change. Traditions which we today believe have long pedigrees may on an historical analysis be found to be an invention of yesterday. In other words, what we regard as tradition may well turn out to be our contemporary requirements fashioned by the way we wish to interpret the past. Interpretations of the past have also come to be treated as knowledge and are handed down as tradition. I would like to consider some of these interpretations in their historical context for this may clarify their validity or otherwise to being regarded as tradition. Normative Values and Social Reality Let me illustrate these ideas with a few examples: The disjuncture between normative values and social reality is often so evident that it is sometimes surprising to come across normative values being taken for description of reality. But it is necessary to distinguish between the organisation of external reality as a theory and the reality itself. Thus the dharma'sastras^ the normative texts par excellence, inform us of the rules of varna. It is assumed that at least the members of the higher varna would observe these rules. However, from the earliest times there are certain discrepancies. The Vedic texts refer to various important V^l9 ^is as dastputmli, bein^ born of d^sis1 Dirghatapias who i$ described